Global Policy Forum

By Alistair Lyon

US plans to ask the United Nations to mandate a US-led multi-national force represent a policy reversal that shows how Iraq's post-war torment has deflated the airy predictions of Bush administration hawks. Until recently, Washington appeared to have ruled out any bid for a new Security Council resolution that would encourage hesitant countries to contribute troops or other aid to Iraq.

Spectacular bomb attacks, daily US casualties and mounting Iraqi anger at the failure of the occupying forces to restore basic services and security have prompted a rethink that could change the power balance within the US administration.

"It reflects a reality check for the neo-conservatives, who now feel exposed," said Jonathan Stevenson, a security expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "The post-conflict situation is proving much more fraught than the United States anticipated, but the Pentagon is still less inclined than the State Department to yield real authority to the United Nations. (. . . ) They are not ready to capitulate".

The United States has so far shown its draft resolution only to its close ally Britain, but a US official has said it further defines the "vital role" of the United Nations. Ellie Goldsworthy, a military expert at London's Royal United Services Institute, said Washington wanted to appear willing to compromise, while keeping military control. "There is no solution that anyone will leap at," she said, but argued that even opponents of the US-led war recognised that Iraq could not be allowed to spin out of control.

Nevertheless those who had been against the invasion might exact a political price for coming to Washington's aid now. "It's in everyone's interest to see internationalisation," she said. "It spreads the emotional as well as the military burden and would alleviate the political pressure on (President George W) Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair". Bush had said the world body would condemn itself to "irrelevance" unless it endorsed military action. It did not.

Dana Allin, a senior fellow for transatlantic relations at the IISS, said returning to the United Nations represented "a defeat for the idea that the US can do this more or less on its own, without seeking a compromise on the Security Council on defining the legitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq". (. . .) "I can't see why the United States would want to have sole or overwhelming political control. The United Nations has flaws, it has made mistakes, but it also has a lot of experience".

Gareth Stansfield, an Iraq expert at Britain's Exeter University, said the Bush administration, with a presidential election year looming, was very concerned to secure peace in Iraq, now that pre-war optimism had proved illusionary. "The neo-conservatives had certainly followed the belief that Iraq would fall easily, the Americans would be welcomed as liberators and Iraq would become a democracy," he said. "The Americans are now trying to identify the least worst solution," Stansfield said. "They are looking for an exit strategy by internationalising the situation".

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