A Pyrrhic Victory at the UN

Well-spun by U.S. and British press handlers, the wire services announced the unanimous passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1511 as a victory for American diplomacy. And so it was, in the sense that a bald man winning a hairbrush in a raffle could claim a victory.

The resolution called on the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to return governing authority to the people of that country "as soon as practicable." In addition, the Council urged Member States to contribute to a multinational force in Iraq to maintain security under a unified command until the establishment of a representative government, at which time its mandate would expire. The Security Council will review the requirements and mission of the force within one year.

The Bush administration did finally get their resolution, but the question is, what can they do with it? The short answer is "not a lot." The White House did not seek this resolution because they felt a need for moral and legal absolution and approbation from the United Nations. It wanted it as a means to four specific goals: to coax more troop contributions from reluctant governments; to coax more cash for Iraqi reconstruction; to coax Kofi Annan to return UN civilian staff to Iraq; and perhaps most of all, reinforced by the previous three, to persuade the bulk of Iraqis that they weren't really occupied at all.

It is highly unlikely to secure any of those goals. On the other hand, it contains so many verbal concessions, and pledges for a rapid transition to Iraqi self-governance, that, even if they are thoroughly hedged in substance, the U.S. has put itself ineluctably on a slippery slope to a more genuinely multilateral approach. The slope is of course helpfully greased with facts on the ground in Iraq, and impending votes on the ground in the U.S.

The key issue for which Russia, France, and Germany had been holding out was a timetable for a constitution, elections, and independence, and for the possibility of handing over power before the whole process was finished. They seem to have won the latter point, more as a hypothesis than a promise, and they ended up with a timetable for a timetable. The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) must present a timetable for constitution and elections by December 15th.

The Resolution as Theology

The obsessive -- and self defeating -- refusal of the U.S. to hand over the reins, or even to promise when and how it would do so, almost scuppered the deal, and by the end it almost looked as if there had been a team of theologians and metaphysicists on the drafting team.

How else can you explain almost self-mocking statements such as clause 4 which

"Determines that the Governing Council and its ministers are the principal bodies of the Iraqi interim administration, which, without prejudice to its further evolution, embodies the sovereignty of the State of Iraq during the transitional period until an internationally recognized, representative government is established and assumes the responsibilities of the Authority."

How a body can "embody" sovereignty when, even as the resolution was being presented, the U.S. was telling it that there would be 10,000 Turkish troops entering its territory, despite the stated wishes of the IGC, and indeed despite the opinion of most Turks? "They have the right to make their views known," a sponsoring diplomat declared in explanation, which as sovereignty goes, does not really go very far.

Equally, the preamble which claims to be "Underscoring that the sovereignty of Iraq resides in the State of Iraq, reaffirming the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own political future and control their own natural resources," does not really sit well with the determination to privatize anything in sight and remove barriers to foreign ownership while dispensing vastly overpriced contracts to GOP contributors.