Common Dreams / Published on Saturday, May 22, 2004 by the International Herald Tribune
The deep confusion that has fallen over the supposed transfer of power in Iraq next month suggests that the best opportunity the United States will ever have to make a constructive exit from that country may be wasted.
Washington's notion that its military presence and continuing political tutelage still can produce political stability and democracy in Iraq is no longer credible. Neither the White House nor the Kerry campaign seems able to admit that the American occupation itself creates instability and provokes national resistance. This would seem self-evident.
The isolated acts of violence with which the resistance began last year have become organized attacks, accompanied by what, even before the prisoner torture revelations, was becoming massive popular rejection of coalition authority and anger at the United States. If the grant of sovereignty at the end of June is not complete, or is postponed, the resistance will acquire the legitimacy of a national and nationalist movement.
An early and constructive withdrawal by the United States would be very difficult, but may yet be possible. The key to getting out is transfer of sovereign control. The United States has always maintained that this is its intention, but with unstated reservations that must now be removed.
Any American effort to hand over less than complete sovereign control will provoke comprehensive resistance, including confrontation with the mainstream Shiite community, led by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
If, on the other hand, the United States offers complete sovereignty and American military withdrawal, a genuine, indeed enthusiastic, effort to make the political and security transition work can be expected from the United Nations and its agencies, and from the European allies - even those whom Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has disdained as former allies.
New possibilities will be opened, such as a national consultation of tribal, religious and other established community and professional leaders in Iraq, and a general international conference on providing a transitional government with new means to reinforce its internal legitimacy and security.
Iraq's neighbors are also likely to be cooperative, which they would not be if the new Iraq is seen as an American satellite - and, inevitably, as a consequence, an Israeli satellite.
Before such an internationally managed and supported transition can be contemplated, the Bush administration and the Pentagon must bite the bullet and agree that the United States is not going to have a major strategic base in Iraq.
The White House also must give up the ideas that American corporate investors are going to have a big role in Iraq's economy in the near future, and that the United States will be able to influence oil prices through its leverage over a new Iraqi government. If Washington has economic influence in Iraq in the future, or enjoys its military cooperation, this will have to be earned from a sovereign Iraqi government.
The argument that a solution can be found in the partition of Iraq into three entities - Shiite, Sunni and Kurd - making them independent or grouping them in a loose political federation, has been offered by Leslie Gelb, president-emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Peter W. Galbraith, a former ambassador. This, it is said, could make it possible for the United States to withdraw safely.
The idea is irrelevant to the current urgency of the crisis, and is beyond the power of the United States to accomplish unilaterally. It is also a bad idea, as Carl Bildt, a former UN special envoy to the Balkans, has rightly and powerfully argued. As he says, even to talk about it is to play with fire. If attempted, partition could precipitate exactly the sectarian violence, forced population transfers, foreign interventions and consequent regional chaos that it is meant to prevent.
Two things are necessary. First, to set a deadline for U.S. military and political withdrawal, and begin that withdrawal. The end of 2004 would be a suitable date for its completion.
Second, to request the United Nations to assume complete responsibility for the formation of a sovereign Iraqi government, or for a process by which such a government can be brought into being, and to assure the United Nations and the other members of the Security Council of disinterested American financial and political support for this undertaking.
One could add a final piece of advice: to pray. The alternative to an early and successful U.S. withdrawal is likely to prove terrible for all involved.
