U.S. had better watch UN role in rebuilding Iraq

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 4-8-03 | John O'Sullivan

[Prince Charles]

U.S. had better watch UN role in rebuilding Iraq

April 8, 2003

BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN

How many times, one wonders, do people have to get it wrong before the world draws the conclusion that there may be something wrong with their general outlook? Whole legions of the left in journalism have predicted Western defeats in the Falklands War, Grenada, the Cold War, the Gulf War, the Afghan intervention and just now the second Iraq war.

By this stage in Iraq the "Anglo-Saxon invaders"--as Al Jazeera and the French call the Anglo-American-Aussie-Polish armed forces there--were supposed to be sinking in a desert quagmire while being helplessly shot at by decent patriotic fedayeen defending their homeland to the cheers of the Iraqis and the wider Arab world.

Yet, as predicted in this space a week ago, the Iraqis are mainly cheering the invaders. And while the Arab world may well be hailing a historic Arab victory over the "Tartars," that is largely because it gets its news from Al Jazeera and competing Middle Eastern TV stations.

At least the inhabitants of Cairo, Amman, Damascus and points east have some excuse for clinging to these delusions. They are misled by a controlled press that caters to the resentments of a decaying culture.

But what is the excuse of the Western left for getting it wrong so consistently? Well, it's prey to the resentments of its own decaying socialist culture, of course. Defeat after defeat--see the above list of Western victories that the left felt would never happen--have made it hungry for almost any victory. And since the last victory they actually enjoyed was (by proxy) the North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam, they see every war as the Vietnam War--quagmire and all.

Thus, British journalist Robert Fisk was tramping around the Revolutionary Guards' defenses on the outskirts of Baghdad last week, explaining that the United States would never be able to sweep past such formidable entrenchments. Two hours of being subjected to precision guided munitions, however, persuaded the defenders to leave for home. The United States duly swept over the defenses like a steamroller over marshmallows. Such mistakes--and they have been common in the liberal media in the last few weeks--cannot be put down primarily to military ignorance. For the military men themselves did not always perform brilliantly either.

Basing themselves on the commonsense assumption that one should never underestimate an enemy, many of them drew a pessimistic picture of the long supply-lines of overstretched U.S. and British forces being gradually worn down by hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. There was nothing wrong with that analysis except that it rested on a false underlying political assumption that Iraqis were willing to fight to the death in large numbers for their brutal dictator. That was an assumption shared by both the military men (for sound prudential reasons) and the media and political left (for shameful ideological ones.)

It was because they saw the utter falseness of this assumption that certain commentators made the correct prediction that the Iraqi resistance would crumble as soon as its fear of Saddam faded.

Now that the Iraq crisis is going from the military to the postwar political stage, it is even more important to get the politics right. For there is a danger that the politicians will throw away what the soldiers have won. One immediate danger is that the United Nations will be given a major role in the political reconstruction of Iraq as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan are apparently urging on President Bush. But that is merely stage one in an attempt to persuade the United States to return to "multilateralism" in all its relations with the UN, with "the international community," and with Europe.

If multilateralism were merely a synonym for mutual cooperation between different states--as Blair evidently believes it to be--then there would be no great problem in agreeing to it. As the early stages of the Iraq crisis demonstrated, however, it is really a device whereby France, Germany, Russia, China and others exploit the rules of international organizations to frustrate the purposes and policies of the United States.

If the UN Security Council had determined the question, Saddam Hussein would be comfortably ensconced in his various marble palaces today. And if the same council has a dominating political role over postwar Iraq, it will quickly ensure that Iraq descends into the same kind of squalor and chaos that UN organizations have brought about in places like Kosovo.

Different governments at the UN will support different political factions in Iraq--the Saudis, the French, the Russians, and the Iranians all have clients in Iraq--and the resulting fragmentation will ensure that the Iraqi people never get to establish their own democratic government. They will become the pawns--and eventually therefore an imitation--of the "international community" as it really is.

And what should finally warn us off that idea is that it has the support of all the people who were wrong about Grenada, the Cold War, the Gulf War and the war that is winding down this week.

[tcostell]

Overstating the obvious Bump!

[thoughtomator]

If there's one thing I have learned about politics, it's that there are times when the obvious does need to be stated, loud and clear. Good piece.