GLOBE EDITORIAL
Bush's bow to Iraq realityTHE DRAFT resolution on a transfer of sovereigny to Iraq that the United States and Britain have submitted to the UN Security Council underlines the fact that President Bush's incoherent policy for Iraq is in need of a radical course correction.
The draft tacitly concedes a fundamental error in Bush's plan: the delusion that the US and its coalition could maintain an extended occupation of Iraq in the absence of genuine self-rule by the Iraqis. The text says the Security Council "Endorses the formation of a sovereign Interim Government of Iraq that will take office by 30 June 2004" and "Welcomes the commitment of the occupying powers to end the occupation by 30 June 2004." This is a bland way of admitting that many Iraqis blame the occupation forces for the intolerable disorder in several Iraqi cities. To obtain the legitimacy that only the UN can confer, Bush has accepted the principle that political power must be ceded to Iraqis. Bush and his advisers should have recognized this from the moment Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown. If from the start Bush had enabled Iraqis to govern themselves and police their own streets, much of the current chaos might have been prevented.
There is a logic that flows from Bush's acceptance of the need to yield real power to Iraqis. When France, Russia, or China asks that the resolution be amended to cede more control over military matters and finances to the interim government that takes office in July, Bush should cooperate -- not for the sake of Jacques Chirac or Vladimir Putin but for the sake of Iraq's future. The UN's special envoy for Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, needs to appoint a unifying figure as prime minister in the interim government, someone who can retain the trust of the disparate elements of Iraqi society. The authority of that government should be limited only by its necessary deference to the successor government to be elected in January 2005, not by foreign occupiers. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
