Posted by Dan Ewert : 4/16/2003 11:39:00 PM (Archive Link)
The war is starting to wind down somewhat and with the predictable victory of the United States. The big questions now involve what happens to Iraq: how will it be rebuilt; who will be in charge, etc. The U.S. and the UK are actively putting together an intermediate military government that will give way to an Iraqi civilian government once the details and politics get worked out. It’s that intermediate time, though, that’s giving everybody heartburn, especially France, Germany, and Russia. The leaders of those countries have already gotten together to discuss the situation. They all did a considerable amount of business with the Saddam regime and they can see it all slipping away in the post-war situation. They simply don’t want all the business and all the politics to revolve around Anglo-American interests. As such, they are crying out that the rebuilding of Iraq must be an international effort… in other words, a UN effort. The venerable Jacques Chirac has already laid down this edict, “We are no longer in an era where one or two countries can control the fate of another country. Therefore the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq is a matter for the United Nations and for it alone.” He’s making subtle accusations of colonialism, about which France knows a great deal and still practices somewhat, and draws on its past record for why the U.S. and UK alone should not be responsible for reconstruction. Instead, he says that everybody must be involved and this is certainly worse.

The problem with Chirac’s assertion is that the UN’s interests aren’t those of Iraq any more than America’s. Rather, they more run counter to Iraqi interests. The U.S. isn’t interested in keeping and perpetuating control in Iraq, despite what some may say. It’s expensive, counterproductive, and a poor, demoralizing use of the military. It’s in U.S. interests to set up a favorable government in Iraq, but not to be the government in Iraq. The UN, however, is a pure bureaucratic entity that would delight in running the place with every international entity juicing whatever it could. It’s style is also such that it wants to accommodate everybody and everything and so an effective government would never be successfully established. Additionally, the UN’s track record in helping state protectorates is hardly glowing. Having the UN involved is a sure route to inefficiency, slow timetables, and cost overruns. Besides all that, it’s not as if the UN would present a united front as to how it should handle Iraq. The Security Council itself would have competing visions about what should be done and whatever administrators are in Iraq would ultimately obey their own country’s perspective. So, no, the UN is not the way to go in rebuilding Iraq. Chirac, Schroder, and Putin will just have to face the consequences of their past actions and suck it up.