The UN route for Iraq: Practical and Ethical Concerns
Menzies Campbell, leader of the Uk’s third party the Liberal Democrats, has proposed bringing in the UN to lead a reconciliation process in Iraq. Its good to see a leading member of the political class finally going some substantial distance toward accepting the reality of the situation in Iraq – namely that the US-UK presence is the major part of the problem, not the solution to the unfolding disaster.
Since the overwhelming majority of Iraqis see the coalition presence as an occupation - and a brutal one at that - a large proportion of them support attacks on the occupying armies that have killed and tortured so many thousands of them, and destroyed their country. For all the talk of civil war, the conflict in Iraq is first a colonial counter-insurgency conflict, which in turn has opened the way to a second, intertwined sectarian bloodbath (e.g. by creating a failed state for the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to operate in).
The root of this dynamic is the occupation, and only ending the occupation can offer the slightest hope that the sting can be drawn from the sectarian strife it has helped to create. It has been clear for some time that the Sunni insurgency is split between the religious extremist foreign fighters such as Zarqawi, who are prepared to target Shia civilians deliberately, and aggrieved Iraqis of a more nationalist bent whose aim is the end of the occupation, not the pursuit of sectarian war, and who direct their attacks at occupation forces. The split is not a clean one by any means, and appears to be a divide between individuals as much as different insurgent groups, but it exists, and is frequently recognised by Iraqi politicians across the board, for example in the formal declaration at the Cairo reconciliation conference last year. To isolate the terrorist extremists from the wider resistance and from the population (which is the only way they’ll ever be defeated) it is essential to address the legitimate grievances that fuel the insurgency. Legitimate grievances should of course, by definition, be addressed in any case, which leads me on to the fundamental point that Campbell misses in his article.
Arguments around the practical benefits of leaving or remaining in Iraq ignore the two important facts that should be the bottom line for any genuine democrat. Firstly and most importantly the Iraqis simply do not want our armies in their country. There’s no serious doubt about this. We may have our own views about withdrawal, which is nice for us, but its irrelevant. That’s if we’re serious about democracy. Its for the Iraqis to decide whether US-UK forces should remain, and their views on that issue are not in doubt.
The second point is that if a country needs outside help to deal with something as serious and fundamental as the creation of an entirely new framework of governance – including a constitution, a parliamentary system, an economy and so forth – then it is absolutely illegitimate (and illegal under international law) for an occupying power to interfere in that process, let alone lead it as the US has done. This will inevitably be done to serve the interests of the interfering country, and no nation has the right to create or mould another to serve its own self-interest. Note the fact that US proconsul Paul Bremer moved quickly on his appointment to cancel elections in Iraq, only agreeing to them after thousands poured onto the streets demanding democracy. This can hardly be surprising given the popular view of the occupation in Iraq. Note the subsequent US attempts to manipulate the elections. Note the devastating effects of the US attempts to shape the Iraqi economy to serve its own interests. The only external body that can legitimately involve itself in nation-building is an impartial one, and only to the extent that it facilitates an domestically-led process, not imposes one of its own. The only international body that comes close to this description is the UN General Assembly, not the Security Council. Again, none of this will be remotely controversial to a genuine democrat.
As Campbell points out, a UN-led process is what most Iraqis want. Can it succeed? A massive contingent of Muslim troops under extremely strict UN oversight and bankrolled by the international community - together, crucially, with a reconstruction programme led by Iraqi firms in order to galvanise the economy and create jobs - would have the legitimacy that the corrupt, bloody and repressive US regime can never enjoy amongst the population – instantly transforming the picture with regard to resistance. The remaining isolated extremists could then be picked off and crushed.
But aside from the plain practical reality that the US-UK occupation is creating not solving most of the problems in Iraq, and that an international effort enjoys prospects for success that the current occupation will never have, the bottom line is that the occupation is immoral, illegitimate and illegal by any standards of democratic principle and according to international law.
Since the overwhelming majority of Iraqis see the coalition presence as an occupation - and a brutal one at that - a large proportion of them support attacks on the occupying armies that have killed and tortured so many thousands of them, and destroyed their country. For all the talk of civil war, the conflict in Iraq is first a colonial counter-insurgency conflict, which in turn has opened the way to a second, intertwined sectarian bloodbath (e.g. by creating a failed state for the likes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to operate in).
The root of this dynamic is the occupation, and only ending the occupation can offer the slightest hope that the sting can be drawn from the sectarian strife it has helped to create. It has been clear for some time that the Sunni insurgency is split between the religious extremist foreign fighters such as Zarqawi, who are prepared to target Shia civilians deliberately, and aggrieved Iraqis of a more nationalist bent whose aim is the end of the occupation, not the pursuit of sectarian war, and who direct their attacks at occupation forces. The split is not a clean one by any means, and appears to be a divide between individuals as much as different insurgent groups, but it exists, and is frequently recognised by Iraqi politicians across the board, for example in the formal declaration at the Cairo reconciliation conference last year. To isolate the terrorist extremists from the wider resistance and from the population (which is the only way they’ll ever be defeated) it is essential to address the legitimate grievances that fuel the insurgency. Legitimate grievances should of course, by definition, be addressed in any case, which leads me on to the fundamental point that Campbell misses in his article.
Arguments around the practical benefits of leaving or remaining in Iraq ignore the two important facts that should be the bottom line for any genuine democrat. Firstly and most importantly the Iraqis simply do not want our armies in their country. There’s no serious doubt about this. We may have our own views about withdrawal, which is nice for us, but its irrelevant. That’s if we’re serious about democracy. Its for the Iraqis to decide whether US-UK forces should remain, and their views on that issue are not in doubt.
The second point is that if a country needs outside help to deal with something as serious and fundamental as the creation of an entirely new framework of governance – including a constitution, a parliamentary system, an economy and so forth – then it is absolutely illegitimate (and illegal under international law) for an occupying power to interfere in that process, let alone lead it as the US has done. This will inevitably be done to serve the interests of the interfering country, and no nation has the right to create or mould another to serve its own self-interest. Note the fact that US proconsul Paul Bremer moved quickly on his appointment to cancel elections in Iraq, only agreeing to them after thousands poured onto the streets demanding democracy. This can hardly be surprising given the popular view of the occupation in Iraq. Note the subsequent US attempts to manipulate the elections. Note the devastating effects of the US attempts to shape the Iraqi economy to serve its own interests. The only external body that can legitimately involve itself in nation-building is an impartial one, and only to the extent that it facilitates an domestically-led process, not imposes one of its own. The only international body that comes close to this description is the UN General Assembly, not the Security Council. Again, none of this will be remotely controversial to a genuine democrat.
As Campbell points out, a UN-led process is what most Iraqis want. Can it succeed? A massive contingent of Muslim troops under extremely strict UN oversight and bankrolled by the international community - together, crucially, with a reconstruction programme led by Iraqi firms in order to galvanise the economy and create jobs - would have the legitimacy that the corrupt, bloody and repressive US regime can never enjoy amongst the population – instantly transforming the picture with regard to resistance. The remaining isolated extremists could then be picked off and crushed.
But aside from the plain practical reality that the US-UK occupation is creating not solving most of the problems in Iraq, and that an international effort enjoys prospects for success that the current occupation will never have, the bottom line is that the occupation is immoral, illegitimate and illegal by any standards of democratic principle and according to international law.
On his blog “Informed Comment” renowned Middle East scholar Juan Cole says “I agree about the UN [but] it will in any case have to wait until January of 2009, since the very clever but very shallow man now in the White House can't imagine not winning all on his own”. I disagree. We should neither abandon public policy to the whims of our rulers nor expect that the fundamental driving factors of policy formulation will change if the other wing of the business party assumes control in Washington. Both the Clinton and Bush governments have explicitly claimed the right to use military force aggressively to assert control over energy supplies, and as demands on those supplies from China, India and the US grow whilst the reserves themselves dwindle, the pathologies of imperial power will continue to demand that the US remains in control of Iraq in order to maintain the global hegemony it claims as its right, irrespective of the will of the Iraqis. Policy makers will only change direction under the force of political pressure, and its up to us to bring that pressure to bear. Unlike the Iraqi public, we in the west have the means, the freedom and the clout to do this successfully. Its also, given what we’ve done to their country, the very least that we owe them.
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