[News] Blair's perversity does him harm and Iraq no good

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Blair's perversity does him harm and Iraq no good

A handover to the UN is now the only way to meet this crisis
Polly Toynbee
Wednesday May 12, 2004

The Guardian
Iraq is near meltdown. The White House and Downing Street seem transfixed 
in a state of denial, incapable even of damage limitation. The UN - the 
last best chance - is on the brink of walking away from Iraq, leaving Bush 
and Blair to reap the whirlwind they have sown.

Iraq inhabits a political and legal void with a foreign force failing to 
keep basic order. A few days ago, supply convoys carrying food for US 
forces couldn't get through to Baghdad, leaving troops on hard rations. 
Americans and their troops have long been barricaded in, apart from heavily 
armoured sorties. Western journalists can no longer operate: as Jonathan 
Steele eloquently described, even the most battle-hardened are holed up, 
relying on Iraqi journalists' reports. Showing a western face is too 
dangerous.

On June 30, the fabled handover of sovereignty is to take place. In 
Washington they are clinging to the mantra that this marks a turning point, 
with no reason why things should get better. It's only six weeks away, but 
there is still no plan, not a single piece of paper yet describing exactly 
what powers are being transferred to whom. Who will these 10,000 prisoners 
belong to? How much of the oil revenues will flow directly into the interim 
government? Who will the new government be?

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special representative, was sent to Iraq to ease 
the passage to democracy much against his will. With his arm twisted by 
Kofi Annan and George Bush, he reluctantly agreed but warned of the risk of 
ensnaring the UN in this ill-fated US/UK adventure. As the murder of its 
previous envoy showed, the UN is unloved in a country that suffered 12 
years of corruptly administered UN sanctions. Brahimi warned that the US 
would never hand over enough power to make a truly independent UN 
intervention possible. He was right. Now, according to Tony Blair's close 
advisers, he is about to walk away from Iraq, leaving Britain and America 
alone to stew after June 30.

Bush and Blair could have tried to save themselves by handing all control 
to the UN. It would have been hard to persuade the rest of the world to 
take it on and the price would have been high. All power over Iraq would 
have to be relinquished forever. Large payments and inducements would be 
needed to persuade the likes of Pakistan and India to offer blue-beret 
troops. Above all, it would mean an implicit admission of failure for an 
American administration contemptuous of multilateralism in general, and the 
UN in particular. Even so, a dignified handover might have been a lesser 
humiliation than facing what may be worse disasters to come. Where was 
Blair's voice suggesting this wiser course of action? Now the drowning men 
are letting their last liferaft slip.

Brahimi is struggling with Paul Bremer, the US governing power, over what 
sovereignty is to be handed over in June. He plans a government led by an 
honorary triumvirate, but run by technocrats not planning to stand for 
office, a nascent civil service. But Bremer is resisting Brahimi's attempts 
to disband all members of the present discredited governing council, 
dominated by the likes of Ahmed Chalabi, who have been running the country 
on networks of patronage and nepotism. Now only real power will convince 
Iraqis they are no longer occupied, but Bremer is denying the interim 
government the right to make new laws. It is unclear how much of the oil 
money the new government will control: the US is keeping the strings 
tightly drawn, according to Dr Toby Dodge, Iraq expert and author of 
Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied.

The interim government will not even control its own armed forces, let 
alone US/UK armies. Robin Cook points out that contracts have been placed 
for the building of 14 "enduring" US bases. Since Donald Rumsfeld closed US 
bases in Saudi Arabia it is not surprising Iraqis fear the US never means 
to leave Iraq. As his ratings fall, the Bush doctrine is giving way to 
emergency expediency, yet Rumsfeld true-believers still see Iraq as the 
centre of future US power in the Middle East. Iraqis can be glad Saddam has 
gone, yet hate the invader too.

The mood is changing. Seasoned experts returning from Iraq say the US/UK 
forces are causing more insecurity than they suppress. Their presence 
foments the uprising, paradoxically creating the united nationhood many 
feared would never happen. Rebellion against the invader is becoming the 
national founding legend for a new state. How can a new government ever 
exert its own authority while humbled by the roar of patrolling US Humvees? 
Robin Cook now calls for all foreign troops to depart in January after the 
elections.

On the other side, conventional Foreign Office opinion fears a rapid US 
withdrawal if politics demand it, reckless of what chaos it leaves behind. 
Iraq, they say, risks descending into failed statehood: think Liberia, 
Libya or Somalia. So the old colonial urge to impose order on others 
remains strong, though Iraq may sound the last post for the idea that 
countries are ever better governed by outsiders. The mighty west has been 
brutally confronted with the limits of superpower here, not a bad lesson to 
learn for a new century.

Television silence from Iraq is what Bush craves, yet swallowing enough 
pride to beg the rest of the world for help is beyond him. True, an abject 
White House beseeching Jacques Chirac for UN assistance is beyond 
imagining. If Iraq reaches the point of ungovernable implosion the UN may 
be forced to act - but Chirac will let Bush roast until November. UK troops 
will stay until 2006 - that is the official line and it is a dreadful 
prospect.

Those close to Blair say Brahimi will strongly advise Annan to have nothing 
to do with any transfer of responsibility to the UN, after his experiences 
in Iraq. So there will be a feeble UN resolution accepting but not 
approving the political process. But even if every obstacle stands in its 
path, from Bush to Chirac, we should keep calling for a handover to the UN 
now, with an elected Iraqi democracy in January deciding how soon all 
foreign forces should depart.

Tony Blair is stranded with responsibility but no authority. He is to blame 
for things he cannot control, obliged to take a moral hit for anything that 
happens in Iraq. This is his own choice, for he could start to carve out an 
autonomous position. His popularity in America gives him some power in US 
election year, but he says he will not "grandstand" for effect or risk the 
"huge" influence he claims to wield in the White House. This martyr-like 
perversity does him harm and Iraq no good.

He need not say he was wrong: no politician can, without being slaughtered. 
But he can promote a new strategy to meet the crisis. Why not offer to put 
British soldiers in blue berets, whatever the US does? But, persuading 
himself it is only some 3,000 extremists causing the trouble, he is a man 
deaf to the bad news from Iraq.

<mailto:polly.toynbee at guardian.co.uk>polly.toynbee at guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004


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