Dawn Ritch, Contributor
THE WORLD cannot afford to have the Americans fail in Iraq. I support the war by United States President George W. Bush, even though I did not support the first Gulf war.
I thought the first one was just about oil. This one is the legitimate removal of a demonstrably barbaric family from the control of the Iraqi people and the second largest reserves of oil in the world.
Establishing peace in the country and rehabilitating the infrastructure is an entirely different matter. As individuals Americans are the most generous people on earth. This is born of a naivety that it has proven impossible to dispel in the last hundred years.
The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York is likely to change that eventually. But the leadership of the United States grew up in a time when nothing could daunt their sense of 'Can do'.
INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY
An unrelenting faith in such an ability has led to international diplomacy that is failing to persuade the rest of the world. Nor was it encouraging when President Bush said the problems in Iraq could be solved by US$87 billion more. Rightly, many suspect that throwing money at the problem won't solve it.
Already the major purchasers of U.S. treasuries are China and Japan. They can therefore be said to be propping up the value of the American dollar. A U.S. President in that situation is hardly in a position to fling US$87 billion at any problem without asking their permission first.
America also faces a public relations crisis of being seen as a coloniser in Iraq. They have said their occupation will be temporary. This still leaves us with an occupation about which nobody can really be happy.
IRAQI EXILES
Americans have great historical experience with occupations, but little with the exercise of public authority over an outer province. This is what Iraq is, until it is turned over to the Iraqis.
Had the British been in charge of the peace in Iraq, they could have told the Americans that the surest way to lose it would be to exclude the Iraqis from work. Or to support not only the return, but the influence of Iraqi exiles. Afraid of being poisoned, Americans bring in Bangladeshi to cook their food. They also brought in the most powerful American companies for a "blitzkrieg reconstruction" in Iraq, at a proposed cost of many times the 'Marshall Plan'.
Where they were right was in forming the American-appointed Governing Council. This is a pot into which representatives of all the social and religious ingredients of Iraq have been thrown. They relate to the U.S. Administrator Paul Bremmer, who is now looking a lot more serious-minded. The increase in suicide bomb attacks on Iraqi civilians and aid workers has no doubt contributed to this.
The British, quietly, and France, Germany, and Russia, volubly, have objected to the preponderance of Hallibur-ton, a major defence contractor once run by U.S. Vice-President, Dick Cheney, in Iraqi reconstruction. Only two companies in the world can handle the scale of the reconstruction necessary. One is Halliburton, and the other is a French contractor. So far the French have just complained about the war and not pitched in to help fight it any way. It seems unreasonable therefore, to expect the French to provide the lead contractor in Iraqi reconstruction.
Members of the U.S. Congress are bawling about the huge price-tag. The job of reconstruction must plainly be done for a lot less money because no country in the world has cash like that to sink down a hole. And a hole it must be, unless a foreign country ends up owning Iraq in perpetuity, or close enough to that not to make a difference.
There is growing need for stricter international auditing and control of Iraqi reconstruction. The United States has already failed to provide this. To cede control of the progress now to the United Nations would be to unleash a blitzkrieg of aimless paperwork and committees. Effectiveness would be lost to the Gordian knot of a fake legitimacy. Before a piece of reconstruction could continue, all the many countries to which the Saddam regime owed billions of dollars, among them France, Germany and Russia, would bring these notes to the table, and demand to know who is going to pay them first.
The British have centuries of experience in balancing competing interests. They should now be asked to become the honest broker in the Iraqi conflict. Appointing a Governing-Council is exactly what the British would have done. They would not make the mistake, however, of believing that the best members of the Council would be the ones who are most telegenic or fluent.
VOCATIONAL BIAS
Governing an outer province takes knowing the local flora and fauna properly, something for which Hollywood, and a vocational bias in education, have not prepared Americans. Britain is also a more multi-cultural country. Its Prime Minister stands a better chance of sorting out France, Germany and Russia's position on their responsibilities in the reconstruction of Iraq. And all this while being mindful of the fact that since America started the war, theirs is the main responsibility.
The larger danger from increasing disorder, loss of life and suicide bombings in Iraq is that the U.S.-led coalition runs the real risk of being accused of a wider plan to subvert the Muslim faith. The continuing strife between the Israelis and the Palestinians only gets bloodier, with America continuing to give blind support to the Jewish state. This is the only country in the world allowed to flout UN resolutions with impunity year after year. Today the U.S. will permit no resolution critical of Israel even to get off the ground. Though a democracy, Israel was established as the first modern state to be basically a theocracy, and is a lightning rod to other fundamentalists.
Unconditional U.S. support for Israel severely undermines America's credibility as the authority in Iraq. It gives a fig-leaf to fighters from Iran and Syria to join with Saddam loyalists and sabotage the reconstruction of Iraq. They pretend the fighting is about a "clash of civilisations", or Muslims against the Jewish proxies of the U.S.led coalition [as was recently suggested by the departing Malaysian Prime Minister at a world conference of Islamic states].
This reconstruction, if it is to succeed, must be able to have Muslim countries support it. As long as Americans have the final responsibility in Iraq, as distinct from the main one, Muslim countries will be reluctant to help the "Great Satan". Time to turn the peacekeeping and supervision of reconstruction efforts over to the Brits. Nor will any of it hold until America and Israel face up to their moral obligations in the Middle East.
