Global Policy Forum

By Ehsan Ahrari*

General Richard Myers' trip to New Delhi to renew America's request for peacekeeping troops from India was just another sign of the triumphant return of multilateralism to the American practice of foreign policy. The Financial Times observed, "It is a dynamic that is taking place in different guises in capitals around the globe. An administration forced to go it nearly alone during the war in Iraq is now being forced, hat in hand and checkbook at the ready, to cobble together international troops to help secure a country where guerrilla attacks are a daily occurrence."

Joseph Nye of Harvard University recently made a powerful observation about America's exercise of "hard power". He wrote, "Although the United States does well on the traditional measures of soft power, these measures fail to capture the ongoing transformation of world politics brought about by globalization and democratization of technology. The paradox of American power is that world politics is changing in a way that makes it impossible for the strongest world power since Rome to achieve some of its most crucial international goals alone." That reality - ie, the inability to achieve its goal alone - might be the harshest lesson the current US administration and its neo-conservative supporters might have learned, as the American occupation of Iraq is getting increasingly bloody.

The US invasion of Iraq was regarded within the neo-conservative circles as the shining moment for the notion of regime change, and a triumph for the Bush doctrine. However, the growing quagmire in Iraq is proving to be the beginning of the ultimate triumphant return of multilateralism, a tradition that the US so deftly used to build the post-World War II non-communist global order, but has spurned during the presidency of George W Bush.

America's triumphant moment in the aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein seems to have long departed, as the spirals of anti-Americanism are rising with the almost daily deaths of American troops. Bush might not yet be having conversations with the ghost of President Lyndon B Johnson, but one wonders whether, or how often, in the privacy of his mind, Bush is thinking of LBJ, the burdens that he bore, and the agony that he experienced when he watched his beloved country slide toward a sure defeat. America's power was enormous then, compared to the rag-tag army of guerilla forces of North Vietnam. Still, the political realities of that era created the conditions of its ultimate defeat. Today, America's military might is even more awesome. Yet Bush might be wondering whether his troubles in Iraq are the making of another American defeat.

The US military victory in Iraq made unilateralism and hard power appear boundless and invincible. The continued bleeding of the US in the streets of Iraq - as witnessed in the death of America's young soldiers - is making its hard power look increasingly vulnerable. One only hopes that it is a temporary phenomenon. But without any evidence assuring that it is indeed a temporary trend, there aren't many options left for the US but to revert to the old and reliable practice of multilateralism. The evidence to that effect is growing.

The US is asking a number of Muslim countries and others to send their troops in order to relieve American forces from the least-desired peacekeeping duties in Iraq. It is hoped that the presence of Muslim forces in Iraq would provide the US occupation some semblance of legitimacy in the Arab world. Secondly, it is hoped that the participation of peacekeeping forces from other countries will not only lower the visibility of American troops in the streets of Iraq, but will also result in the lowering of US casualties.

However, the international response is significantly less than expected. Pakistan has stated that it will commit its troops to Iraq only after such a measure is approved by the United Nations. President General Pervez Musharraf is in no mood to add fuel to the already heightened flames of anti-Americanism in his country. It is not yet clear what Turkey's reaction is likely to be, now that the US is reported to have asked it to dispatch 10,000 troops to Iraq. Both France and India have rejected the US request for troop commitment to Iraq without the sanctions of the world body. Russia has called for a new UN resolution for a genuinely international stabilization force.

The US's head civilian in Iraq, L Paul Bremer - during an interview on the NBC program Meet the Press, on July 20 - made a point of minimizing its implications for the Bush administration. It was obvious that he was sensitive to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of a number of countries to commit themselves to peacekeeping duties in Iraq and was attempting to put forward the best face. He said that 13,000 allied troops were already in Iraq; however, compared to the US troops of around 150,0000, the size of the allied forces is minuscule. Even though Bush was reluctant to endorse the proposition of going back to the United Nations, his administration is reported to be considering just such a move.

There are other reasons for concern for Washington. The occupation is currently costing $1 billion per week, twice the pre-war days projections made by the White House. There is a growing chorus inside the US urging the Bush administration to ask for the help of the UN, an entity that Bush has regularly depicted as "irrelevant". Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated on July 20, "We have to go back to the UN, get a resolution giving the Europeans and others the color of authority within their constituencies to be able to go in and provide money and troops." The US Senate is on the record in calling on the White House to consider requesting NATO and UN troops in Iraq. At least for now, NATO has shown no enthusiasm for a peacekeeping mission in Iraq.

While Bremer was talking about developing a legitimate government and a constitution for Iraq in terms of one or more years, the UN Secretary General Kofi Anan was insisting that the governing coalition in Iraq "must urgently establish a timetable leading to the end of military occupation if it wanted to stem growing impatience amid [a] precarious, some believe deteriorating, situation in the country."

If the Bush administration needed additional proof of the worsening conditions in Iraq, a report of the team appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned that the potential of chaos in Iraq is mounting by the day. Added to this report is the rising willingness of the American soldiers to air their unhappiness at spending additional months on patrol in Iraq. Undoubtedly, the intensifying sentiments of anti-Americanism and the regular loss of US forces, more than the escalation of domestic and foreign pressure for a UN mandate that is forcing the Bush administration toward considering a multilateral approach for Iraq.

The questions remain, however, as to how much control over Iraq the US will be willing to transfer to the UN, and at what cost. For instance, under a powerful multilateral rule, America's priorities for a secular government for Iraq might be deemphasized. It is also possible that the Shi'ite preferences for an Islamic democracy might escalate with a new vigor once they realize that the primacy of US forces in their country has decelerated. Even the visible participation of the Iraqi expatriates might be lowered. It is also possible that they will even be removed from the interim governing arrangements altogether.

The most difficult reality related to the worsening political situation in Iraq is that the neo-conservative aspirations - that America should reshape the Muslim Middle East in its own image - are about to be shattered. The greatest challenge for the US is to decide whether it will allow the intermingling of Islam and democracy in Iraq in the name of multilateralism. Such an intermingling does not promise to allow much room for America's primacy in the immediate vicinity of Iraq; however, the triumphant return of multilateralism to the global arena seems to be quite certain.

About the Author:Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.

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