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Building the coalition of the
unwilling
By Ehsan Ahrari
When US forces swept through Iraq and toppled a
tyrannical regime, the Bush administration's
self-confidence was boundless. Secretary of State Colin
Powell declared with a stern face that France would be
punished for opposing the US invasion of Iraq, while
refusing to elaborate on the exact nature of that
punishment. Foreign-policy pundits on the US side of the
Atlantic declared that relations with Germany would
never be the same, largely because of Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder's opposition to the US military actions
against Iraq.
Alexander Drabkin, a Russian
observer, recently writing in the Moscow Times,
described President George W Bush's overall demeanor
when he visited Russia immediately after the
dismantlement of the Iraqi government as that of "the
victor over [Saddam] Hussein, the conqueror of Iraq". At
that time, continued Drabkin, Bush, "who generally does
not give the impression of a humble person, was showing
off arrogance and superiority even more". Be that as it
may, even when things are not going well from its
strategic perspectives in Iraq, the United States has a
peculiar style of attempting to overplay its hand. That
process is currently very much in progress. Strange as
it may sound, it is really about cobbling together the
coalition of the unwilling.
In the wake of the
continued deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, incidents
of sabotage, and even the blowing up of the United
Nations headquarters on August 19 in Baghdad, the US has
decided to go for a new UN resolution. This strategy
ostensibly has three underlying objectives. First, US
officials have gone to some lengths in establishing a
linkage between the explosion of the UN headquarters and
the need for other nations to commit troops. Second,
that linkage is aimed at conveying to other countries
that their potential commitment of troops would in
essence be aimed at supporting UN activities, and not
sustaining the US occupation of Iraq. Third, while
asking other nations to commit troops, Washington is
still in no mood to share with them the authority of
ruling Iraq. Powell underscored Washington's new line by
stating, "We have said all along that we want the UN to
play a vital role," but made it quite clear that "the
issue of ceding authority is not an issue we have had to
discuss today".
Therein lies the rub. As UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan stated, the US must relent
on the issue of sharing governing authority if it wants
peacekeeping troops from those nations who opposed the
war in Iraq and are still refusing to get involved in
that country. The impending passage of the new UN
resolution very much depends on the willingness of
Washington and London to be flexible. As Annan noted,
"It would also imply not just burden-sharing, but also
sharing decisions and responsibility with others. If
that doesn't happen, I think it is going to be very
difficult to get a second resolution that will satisfy
everybody."
The calculations of the Bush
administration related to the impending UN resolution
are quite apparent. Through that resolution, it wants
other countries to station their troops in various parts
of Iraq to protect its infrastructure from being
sabotaged, thereby lowering the visibility of US forces,
and also reducing the rate of its casualties.
But the most immediate outcome of the presence
of multinational troops would be that the level of
casualties of other nations' forces would drastically
shoot upward. What country would allow its forces to
absorb such a punishment? On the face of it, it does not
seem that too many nations are so inclined. In fact, one
European diplomat stated on a background basis, "It [the
US quest for a multinational peacekeeping force] sends
us the message, 'We don't need to spill more American
blood, we need foreign blood.'" Japan is already
reported to be reconsidering the issue of deployment of
its troops in Iraq.
The blowing up of the UN
headquarters in Iraq has established the fact that
guerrilla warfare in that country is being waged without
any regard to who is being attacked. Apparently, the
perpetrators of that attack do not differentiate among
UN officials, US troops or the Iraqis who are working
for either of those entities. For that reason, it is
generally speculated that the pro-Saddam forces have
either lost the lead in carrying out the sabotage and
attacking US forces, or they have formed a nexus with
the jihadi groups, who might have acquired an upper hand
in this mindless mayhem.
The fact that the US
government has suddenly decided to expand the UN's
symbolic authority is a clear signal that its own
estimates of the security situation in the coming weeks
and months in Iraq are quite ominous. Even then, the
decision to build a coalition is quintessentially
American. Powell phrased it quite adroitly when he
observed that nations that are about to commit their
troops to Iraq should be confident that those troops
would be serving under the competent military command of
the United States.
Translation: The US
government has no intention of loosening its grip on
power in Iraq. Other nations must be willing to come to
Iraq, but still on America's terms. That is just a
classier way of saying "coalition of the willing", a
phrase that was popularized by US Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld but which still remains a source of
annoyance for a number of countries of "old" Europe. The
differences of the pre-Iraq-invasion days between the
United States and a number of European countries seem to
have resurfaced. France, Germany, Mexico, Syria and
others are reportedly "cool" to Powell's offer to share
the burden in Iraq without sharing the authority. France
would like to see an enhanced role for the UN.
When Rumsfeld first uttered that phrase,
"coalition of the willing", the strategic environment
was quite different for the United States. Its troops
were posturing to invade Iraq, America's military
victory was assured, given its superiority over the
Iraqi forces, and Washington was dismissive of all
opposition to its then impending invasion of Iraq as a
minor irritation. Now, Powell's insistence that
multinational troops must come to Iraq to help the US
fulfill its own vision of the future of Iraq is a
galling proposition. However, the staying power of that
proposition is quite shaky.
The continued
deterioration of the security situation in Iraq will be
a major setback for the United States' proposed
ambitious transformation of the Middle East. If the
security situation deteriorates further, the US will
have to revisit the issue of sharing the governing
authority with other nations. Bush has already indicated
a willingness to discuss all such issues in the UN
forum. Even then, the level of violence and terrorism
may not level off.
It appears that, at some
point, the entire issue of the continued occupation of
Iraq has to be revisited in Washington. Regardless of
who remains in charge in Iraq, it seems that the
continued suffering of the Iraqis will not end any time
soon.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an
Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic
analyst.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
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