Is This the Endgame? It'll Take Luck and UN Aid To Speed the U.S. Iraq Exi

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Is This the Endgame? It'll Take Luck and UN Aid To Speed the U.S. Iraq Exit

November 23, 2003



In Brussels, Secretary of State Colin Powell was gathering support among European foreign ministers for a U.S. effort to craft a new United Nations resolution that might lead to a renewed and stronger role for the UN in Iraq. The move, which would give the UN a significant part in the transition from occupation to sovereignty, is aimed at ensuring that the interim Iraqi government would not fail for lack of international recognition or economic and military support.


Is this part of the Bush administration's endgame? No question about it. It's a key piece of its new plan to transfer power more rapidly to a provisional Iraqi government even before a constitution is drawn up and national elections are held. And it's a canny move on several levels, even if it reverses the administration's previous high- handed stance toward the UN. Its astuteness was clear in the positive reception Powell's proposal received from the European foreign ministers, which bodes well for the chances a new UN resolution would have in the Security Council.

After all, European allies would get what they always insisted they wanted and couldn't get from Bush: a more rapid transfer of power to a sovereign Iraqi government and a more substantive role for the UN in Iraq. Without even a trace of irony - governments don't do irony well - the Bush administration is essentially proposing what France and Germany had urged all along. Only this time it's coming from Washington, not Berlin or Paris. No matter. German officials are now talking in a far more conciliatory fashion about the necessity for all nations, not just the United States, to ensure that Iraq does not fall apart and revert back to tyranny and becomes instead a peaceful and democratic nation. The change in diplomatic tone is startling. It's partly motivated by pragmatism. Regardless of their objections to the war, European partners are now accepting its reality and are grudgingly recognizing that it's in everyone's best interest to make sure that the Iraqi mess is cleaned up as quickly as possible, for the sake of stability in the Middle East and a steady supply of oil.

But, of course, the administration's nod to the UN and its own more conciliatory approach shore up a glaring weakness that Bush's political strategist saw emerging on his campaign trail. Bush's Democratic rivals have failed to articulate in any detailed or substantive way how their Iraq policy would differ from Bush's except for a single, common theme: Each has been fiercely critical of Bush for failing to build international support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq and all said they would give the UN a far greater role in the postwar transition.

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