THE U.N. AND IRAQ by JAMES TRAUB (THE STANLEY FOUNDATION): 22/10/2007  

UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 22 October 2007 --  James Traub is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he has worked since 1998. He has written extensively about international affairs and the United Nations, and has reported from the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Angola, Egypt, Kosovo, and Haiti. His most recent book is The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. He is currently working on a book about democracy promotion.  

This policy analysis brief was prepared for the Stanley Foundation. For more information, contact Keith Porter,  kporter@stanleyfoundation.org.

Recommendations

·        The United Nations should attempt to broker a political settlement among the Iraqi parties, though only if it gains the compliance of key actors.  

·        The United Nations should not significantly increase the size of its mission, which in turn would raise security issues. It needs to send the right people, not more people.  

·        All Iraqi parties—save those allied with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups—must be included in the process, which will focus on the core issues of federalism, the distribution of oil wealth, incorporation of ex-Baathists, disarming of militias, the status of Kirkuk.  

·        The United States must not only explicitly back the process, but press its own allies in Iraq —above all, the Kurds—to make meaningful concessions. Harder still, the United States must accept that decisions about troop deployments and other fundamental concerns could be shaped by the negotiations.  

·        The negotiation process must incorporate the regional players who have leverage over the various Iraqi factions.  

·        Even should the political process fail, the United Nations needs to expand its presence in neighboring countries in order to deal with the immense problem of Iraqi refugees. The chief donors will have to accept this additional burden.  

In recent months, the United Nations has been called on to serve as Iraq’s deus ex machina—the instrument that will somehow break the calamitous deadlock which now grips the country. These calls have been issued from the Bush administration, which until now has confined the United Nations to the most carefully circumscribed tasks—from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and from a few policy experts in Washington.  

Why is the UN alarm suddenly being rung? Certainly it’s hard to see any shifts inside Iraq that increase the likelihood that a UN political mission will succeed. It’s rather that every other pathway, whether political or military, looks increasingly like a dead end. This recognition may itself constitute the UN’s trump card, for even a profoundly stubborn White House may have come to see the virtues of international diplomacy.  

Why the United Nations? A recent report from the Brookings Institution concludes that the organization is uniquely situated to broker a political compromise in Iraq because “it is the only body that approximates neutrality and can claim all the relevant state actors within its membership.” Only the United Nations can offer itself as a neutral convening ground for the contending factions and the neighbors, with their conflicting interests. But recent history provides good reason to worry that the United Nations will be drawn into the inferno of Iraqfor all the wrong reasons, whether it be the American wish to transfer responsibility, and blame, for a hopeless cause or the ambition of a new secretary-general to prove his mettle, and that of his organization.  

Before committing the organization to so improbable and dangerous a task, we have to ask several crucial questions:  

·        Why will the United Nations now be able to put out fires it hasn’t been able to quench before?

·        What does the organization have to do to even make this onerous task possible?

·        And do the various actors really mean it when they say they want the United Nations to come to the rescue?  

The United Nations is not an icebreaker that smashes through obstacles; on the profoundly political questions upon which national reconciliation depends, the United Nations can play a role only if the chief antagonists want it to. And it is not at all clear that this is true in Iraq.  

The Perils of Applying Old Formulas for UN Involvement in Iraq

If past conflicts had been any guide, one might have expected the United Nations to play a foundational role in post-war Iraq. In Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor, a coalition of Western military forces had intervened to stop atrocities, and in the aftermath the United Nations, along with other bodies, had established a transitional government until a stable, indigenous government could be formed, or recognized. In Afghanistan, a setting more directly comparable to Iraq, American-led forces had ousted an authoritarian regime that threatened the West, and then the United Nations had helped form a national government, and had kept it under close supervision thereafter. But neither model was applied to Iraq, in large part because neither the United States nor the chief powers in the United Nations were in any mood to cooperate after the ugly and, ultimately futile, struggle to gain Security Council approval for the use of force to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.  

Ever since the invasion, the United Nations has had a peculiar, and very uncomfortable, role in Iraq. Resolution 1483, passed on May 22, 2003, recognized the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as the interim power in Iraq. The resolution also authorized UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative who, “in coordination with the Authority,” was charged with “promoting” the return of refugees and the process of reconstruction, “encouraging international efforts” in various spheres, and “working intensively” with all relevant parties to help establish a permanent Iraqi government. The United Nations, in short, would be held partly responsible for Iraq’s progress, but would have no direct authority of its own—a formula that made many UN officials believe they had been handed a poisoned chalice.  

Annan’s representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, a deft and widely admired figure, proceeded to demonstrate that, even with no formal authority, the United Nations could use its special status as a neutral party to advance the cause of political reconciliation. De Mello persuaded reluctant Iraqi leaders to join the powerless Governing Council that CPA administrator Paul Bremer had decided to impanel. But Bremer had little further use for him, and de Mello was soon idled. And then, on the afternoon of August 19, the United Nations suffered the most cataclysmic event in its history: A truck bomb killed de Mello and 21 of his colleagues.  

UN officials who had chafed at the idea of bailing the United States out of the mess it had created in Iraq were now enraged both at the United States and at Annan, who had pushed strongly for a UN role. And the United Nations had lost not only some of its most deeply respected figures but also its collective sense of security. The attack shattered the faith that impartiality conferred upon the United Nations a unique immunity from surrounding violence, and plunged the organization into a period of grief, fear, and embitterment. Nevertheless, Annan declined to remove the mission, reasoning that he ought not hand the terrorists that victory. Then, a month later, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of the UN compound, and Annan agreed to remove all international officials from Iraq.  

The United Nations was pinned between competing forces: It did not want to serve under a vague mandate in a murderous environment, and yet it did not want to be absent from Iraq; the Bush administration did not want to cede any authority to the institution, yet found that it could not live without it. By late 2003, Bremer’s plans for a slow transition to Iraqi sovereignty were coming unraveled, and he devised a complex plan to draw up a new constitution and transfer power by mid-2004; but the Iraqis balked at the plan. Annan, eager to restore the United Nations to Iraq despite the terrible trauma, agreed to appoint Lakhdar Brahimi, another of his most seasoned and gifted diplomats, to help resolve the standoff. And Brahimi did what the Americans could not. He persuaded Ayatollah al-Sistani, who would not speak to the Americans, that elections could not be held before the end of 2004, and thus that the transition would have to precede the elections; he persuaded Bremer that the Iraqis would never accept the unwieldy caucus system he had devised to create a simulacrum of democratic choice; and he chose, or at least approved the choice of, Iyad Allawi as Iraq’s first prime minister.  

In June 2004, the Security Council passed Resolution 1546, conferring its blessing on the transition process. The resolution established a new UN mission, known as the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and stipulated that it would “play a leading role” in helping the new government of Iraq organize and carry out elections and draft a constitution.  It would help reform Iraq’s civil service and judiciary, provide humanitarian aid, protect human rights, and the like.  

The national elections, scheduled for January 2005, became the supreme test of the UN role. With Iraq spinning downwards into a vortex of bloodshed—US forces stormed the stronghold of Falluja in early November—and with the Sunnis prepared to boycott en masse, the election looked like a catastrophe in the making. But thanks to the enormous enthusiasm of Shias and Kurds, the iconic image of the voters’ purple thumb, and the low levels of violence, the election was judged a tremendous success—the high point of the American presence in Iraq, and perhaps also of the UN role there. In the 21 months since the end of the war proper, the United Nations had, under unimaginably trying circumstances, carried out its classic political role in post-conflict settings: it had engaged and brought together the chief players of the new polity, helped forge interim institutions, and organized the election that would usher the country into its future.  

In other settings, such as Afghanistan, the United Nations would then build on the trust it had created to continue playing a key role as interlocutor and referee. But not in Iraq. Neither the Americans nor the Iraqis had much further use for the United Nations, save in regard to the ongoing humanitarian crisis. And as the violence descended into increasingly savage civil war, there was little use for the UN’s “good offices.” The organization would remain in Iraq, but it would recede to the margins.  

It was a Bush administrative initiative that revived the idea of an enhanced UN role in Iraq. In mid-2006, White House figures began talking about a “compact” with Iraq overseen by the United Nations. American diplomats orchestrated the effort, and in May of this year the Iraqi government, the United Nations, the World Bank, and donor nations signed the International Compact with Iraq. The Compact was the framework through which aid to Iraq was internationalized, as the United States had long sought. The donors pledged $35 billion in aid and debt forgiveness; the Iraqis promised to carry out a wide array of political, economic, and constitutional reforms; and the United Nations and the World Bank agreed to oversee implementation.  

But it was all something of a mirage. Few believed that the Iraqi government would succeed in, say, establishing the rule of law in exchange for a promise of aid. And the Compact did not actually expand the UN’s role in Iraq, which continued to be governed by Resolution 1546. The Bush administration may have hoped that the Compact would help extricate the United States from its solitary role as the party responsibility for Iraq, but since the pact produced little measurable progress, this did not happen.  

Washington continued to push the United Nations to grasp the Iraqi nettle. In late July, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, used The New York Times op-ed page to laud the UN’s “unmatched convening power and to propose that the organization “help Iraq’s principal communities reach a national compact on the distribution of political and economic power,” and lead a “multilateral diplomatic process to contain the regional competition that is adding fuel to the fire of Iraq’s internal conflict.” The United States then submitted, and the Security Council quickly approved, a resolution to extend and update UNAMI’s mission. Resolution 1770 specified that the United Nations “advise, support, and assist” the government of Iraq on “national reconciliation”; the resolution of disputed internal boundaries; “facilitating regional dialogue, including on issues of border security, energy and refugees”; and the reintegration of former insurgents.  

This was, at least in theory, a vast and ambitious remit. But the Shia-led government in Baghdad quietly watered down the language by stipulating that UNAMI would act only “as circumstances permit,” and “at the request of the government of  Iraq.” The regime thus put the international community on notice that it would throttle the peace-brokering effort were it so inclined. Washington did not object.  

Nevertheless, the United Nations, at least in its uppermost reaches, plainly hankered for the new role. On September 22, in the days before the opening of the General Assembly, Ban Ki-moon convened a meeting with Prime Minister al-Maliki and the foreign ministers of 20 nations to explore the means of furthering both the United Nations and the international role in Iraq. Very little of substance was accomplished, according to several attendees, but at a press conference afterward, Ban announced that he had found strong support for a greater UN role both from Iraq and from the foreign ministers. The United Nations, he said, had a “comparative advantage” in promoting reconciliation and reconstruction—the exact language Khalilzad had used. Ban said specifically that he planned “a modest increase” in the staff in Baghdad and in the tiny office in Erbil.  

Moving Forward in Reverse?

It sounds like the stars are aligned for a new era of UN engagement in Iraq. But in fact nothing has happened since the passage of Resolution 1770 to change the situation on the ground. 

The most obvious obstacle to a greater UN role is the security situation. Kofi Annan was accused of sending a UN team to  Baghdad so hastily that rudimentary precautions were overlooked. A subsequent investigation confirmed some of these charges, though de Mello was also not a man to be trammeled by matters of safety. The tragedy left a deep scar on the organization, and has ensured that its footprint in Iraq is a very light one. UNAMI has 65 civilians in Baghdad, though only 25 or so are “substantives.” (The rest perform administrative functions.) The team is protected by 200 armed guards. The mission’s most recent report, submitted June 5, noted that attacks on the Green Zone “have become increasingly concentrated and accurate and often consist of multiple mortars and rockets landing within minutes of each other.” The number of car bombs set off near entry points to the Green Zone has also increased. UN officials have thus “temporarily been relocated to more hardened accommodation facilities.” The special representative thus called for the construction of new facilities, which are estimated to cost over $150 million and require 18 months to complete. Despite these attacks, UN officials suggest that the mission could grow to its authorized ceiling of 95 without having to add more guards along the perimeter, though it would require more effectively hardened facilities. And Ban is said to be quite eager to send more officials as a token of the UN’s commitment.  

But this is putting the cart before the horse. Security is actually not the chief limiting factor. There is still no reason to send more international civil servants into harm’s way unless there are essential tasks for them to perform. And as both de Mello and Brahimi demonstrated, the most crucial tasks require only a handful of people. Thus the real question is: How much scope exists for the political tasks that have now been entrusted to the United Nations?  

The answer, so far, has been very little. There has been halting progress, and in some cases none at all, on the major issues that separate Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, and in many cases pit factions inside these groups against one another. These include the sharing of oil revenues, the relationship of the federal government to the provinces, the reintegration of former Baathists, the status of the disputed Kirkuk region, the demobilization of militias, and the protection of minority rights (for Sunnis, say, in majority-Shia regions).  

Many of these issues must be addressed through amendments to Iraq’s constitution. UNAMI has been advising Iraq’s Constitutional Review Committee since the committee’s inception in November 2006; four of the “substantives” in Baghdad are constitutional experts. Earlier this year, the committee came up with a series of compromises to be presented to the Iraqi parliament. But Kurdish leaders did not accept the proposed language on oil revenues; and so the process is now in limbo.  

The national government may crumble away before outside actors have a chance to shore it up. The Bush administration’s August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate notes that “Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively,” and predicts further deterioration over the next year. Three different parties have withdrawn their support from the Shia-led government. More than half of the Cabinet positions are unfilled. The government’s writ barely operates in much of the country, where issues of power are being settled among tribal leaders, militia commanders, and a new class of gangsters with sectarian affiliations. The semi-autonomous government of Kurdistan, tired of waiting for a new oil law, has begun to sign oil exploration contracts with foreign firms—a decision that some view as a poison pill for national reconciliation.    

Historical Lessons: The Importance of Local, Regional, and Global Political Will  

CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO>>

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Note: Stanley Foundation Policy Analysis Briefs are thought-provoking contributions to the public debate over peace and security issues. The views expressed in this brief are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Stanley Foundation. The author’s affiliation is listed for identification purposes only.

Labels: United Nations, U.N., James Traub, The Stanley Foundation, The U.N. and Iraq

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