The Future Government of Iraq

[Skunk]

Unhappy endings
"The world is upside down. The three left-of-centre dailies - the Guardian, the Independent and the Mirror - are all the most hostile to the Labour government's war, while the rightwing press largely urges it on. This is a wretched state of affairs for those who wish this government well, watching it plunge headlong into what looks like a serious error. Europe is fractured, other alliances and friendships lost, leaving Britain marooned with George Bush. Colin Powell's sweep through Old Europe yesterday delivered a direct snub to any serious role for the UN rebuilding Iraq. The background roars from the president's stomach-churning speech in North Carolina were a display of patriotic histrionics to appal the world.
Yet what if it does end well and Tony Blair proves right after all? Those who oppose the war can only hope to eat their words: nothing wrong with humble pie. So let us examine the government's scenario for everything going right. At the moment, it goes as follows.

Republican Guard battalions have melted away under catastrophic bombardment. Stout resistance remains and Baghdad may not fall in a day but it will not be Stalingrad. There is no great hurry - Basra is the patient way to take towns, gradually. The regime will fall with fewer British and US losses than in any conflict in history: civilian deaths will be proportionate. Rolling news deceives with its hungry demands for a new Band of Brothers episode every hour, but war doesn't work like that. All in all, the government sounds calmly certain that all will be well. Since we know nothing, let's assume all will be tolerably well.

It was always the aftermath that was in doubt - in Iraq and in the world. How believable is Blair's version? He promises to persuade the US that it cannot rule Iraq alone. The US needs the UN not just for humanitarian aid, but for reconstruction. The US needs the UN for money, for legitimacy and to avoid inflaming the Arab world. "Iraq for the Iraqis," Blair promises. As for the French and Germans, they will see the error of their ways and hasten to rebuild good relations with the US: it will start with a meeting like the UN-sponsored Bonn conference that determined Afghanistan's postwar settlement. Britain will prove it is again a strong bridge between the US and EU. Then Bush will head off down the roadmap to peace in Palestine, while Iraq holds free elections, the Arab world sees a beacon of democracy in their midst and the world is a safer place.

All that would be excellent. The only trouble with the Blair vision is that it is exceedingly difficult to find anyone anywhere who believes it will happen - certainly not the White House. That is not their vision at all, as Powell made brutally clear yesterday. They have done the fighting, so why hand the peace over to the French and Russians on the security council?

The UN can do humanitarian, but not a single US soldier will wear a blue hat. Instead General Jay Garner and his battery of 24 Pentagon-approved Americans will run every ministry, with a tame Iraqi exile each. Contracts will not be awarded by a UN fair procurement process: why give the French or Russians anything? A new Iraqi government will be US and Israel-friendly: what happens when the Iraqis don't vote that way is just blanked out of their minds.

It gets worse. John Bolton, assistant secretary of state, visiting the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs in London, was already musing publicly on a coming pre-emptive strike on Iran. Russia is building Iran a nuclear capability that could give it weapons within months, he said. Better to knock it out first - a necessity as soon as it is spoken. For Iran faced with Iraq as a US satellite on one side with Israel's nuclear power on the other will respond to this pincer threat. The director of the Royal Institute listened to Bolton aghast. US conviction that a free Iraq will spread light and freedom all about it is not shared by those who know the region.

Nor does most of Europe believe in Blair's happy ending. Indeed, Powell killed it in Brussels yesterday. Since it has taken until now for the Germans and French finally to say in public that they hope Saddam will lose the war, there is hardly a close rapprochement on either side. Here the Blair-bridge vision halts.

The postwar landscape looks bleaker by the day, international law fractured, the UN bust. The only optimism comes from triumphalist White House hawks or from the Downing Street dream factory - though their visions are quite different. Elsewhere it is hard to find observers who feel anything but alarm at what is yet to come. Look back at Afghanistan, controlled by warlords still, severely underfunded and under-policed, all reconstruction money still spent on basic feeding, a place forgotten as the world moves on. Will Iraq fare much better?

There is one streak of hope on the grey horizon, though Blair may not see it that way. There is a chance now that the shock of schism may shake Europe into a new unity. All Europe, Britain included, is agreed that Iraqi reconstruction must be done under UN auspices - and that means what it says. This unity of purpose offers Britain's best chance to get back inside a newly purposeful Europe, with its own progressive mission as upholders of multinationalism and international law.

Powell offered only a dim UN role: an appointee would act as "the UN's eyes and ears" on a US-run interim Iraq administration. No amount of diplomatic verbiage can obscure the difference between a genuine UN operation and a nominal one. Chirac having taken the high moral ground on the war, to enormous approval in the polls, will not endorse a fix. Nor will the Russians or Germans - nor can Blair now. Unless the White House has a remarkable conversion, this gap looks unbridegable and the prime minister will soon be confronted again with that choice he never means to make - the choice between the Atlantic and the Channel. It is crucial that this time he jumps back with Europe to support the UN.

Right across Europe there is a new sense of purpose, as people wake up to their new responsibilities now they have let go of the American umbrella they have idled under lazily since the war. When Joschka Fischer, a Green minister in an instinctively pacifist nation, can announce that Germany must at last help build a European defence strategy, then a stronger Europe may be in sight. The French and Germans are not calling it a "counterweight" to the US, but less aggressively, simply "a weight".

Wars are political milestones: the EU trauma over Iraq could now forge a stronger Europe, better connected to its peoples, who have stood almost unanimously against the war. But it depends on Blair choosing Europe. In the grim uncertainty this war will leave in its wake, the world will need the EU as a strong and independent voice as never before. Those on the left who have hesitated over Europe should see now that the game has changed."

and from Le Monde,
Colin Powell face à des Européens moins divisés sur l'après-guerre

"the American Secretary of State, who wants to start in Brussels the debate on post-Saddam Iraq, will find Europe hostile to an American seizure on the rebuilding and the transition in Iraq. Europe is much less divided on this topic than with the preceding phase.

That they approve or not of the the military intervention, that they take part in it or not, all of the European countries, like Russia, are decided on the need to a return of the management of the crisis to the UN as soon as the weapons are still."

[Thoran]

I think that the liberal smattering of currency signs would be well applied all over that article.

Europe is $ united in it's demand $$ that the UN $$$ direct all recon-$$$-struction efforts. $$

I guess once all the dirty work is done then those on their high horses will deign to climb down long enough to cash in on reconstruction eh?

[Skunk]

I think you are misinterpreting the issues.
As far as reconstruction money is concerned, Europe is not particularly bothered if the US wants to pay for reconstruction the costs, and only allows US companies to bid for those tenders. In fact, Europe is demanding that the US/UK pay for the reconstruction as it is their legal duty to do so.

The contention begins to arise when Iraqi money (from oil) goes to US companies, or when Iraqi national industries suddenly find themselves in US hands.

But money isn't the real issue here (as yet) - the issue is whether the US will make good on it's promise of "Iraq for the Iraqi's" - so far, there is no indication that this promise will be kept.

[Ronn_Bman]

Originally posted by Skunk: the issue is whether the US will make good on it's promise of "Iraq for the Iraqi's" - so far, there is no indication that this promise will be kept.

So far there is NO indication this promise will NOT be kept. None, zero, zip... absolutely none whatsoever. There is wild speculation that the promise won't be kept, and propaganda that the US is only interested in Iraq to control it's oil, but that is all it is. Speculation and nothing more.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Skunk: As far as reconstruction money is concerned, Europe is not particularly bothered if the US wants to pay for reconstruction the costs, and only allows US companies to bid for those tenders. In fact, Europe is demanding that the US/UK pay for the reconstruction as it is their legal duty to do so.

[img]graemlins/jawdrop.gif[/img] Surely you are not so naive. Everyone wants their companies to be in on the pie - why wouldn't they? They DO care.

As for post-war government, I know that it's already being put together in D.C. by Iraqi-Americans recruited by the government at seminars held mostly in Michigan (which has a *huge* Iraqi community, FYI). I'm trying to find an article on it, and I will post it on the forum.

[Mordenheim]

The bottom line is the only people who have any importance after is the Iraqi's. So if they accept whatever governemnt is put in place then France, Russia, and whoever else has no saying or importance period.

America, Britain, and other coalition members are putting in the blood sweat and tear's now and will so after. I am sure the new Iraqi government will look at those countries first for any deal's involving money. All contracts with Sadam will become a non factor (like that huge oil deal he had with France). Shame

[Thoran]

I don't for a minute believe I'm misinterpreting the article. Reconstruction costs will be payed for by Iraqi oil not coalition funds, and who wouldn't want in on the action.

They want to keep their contracts and agreements, they want to keep their companies plugged into the Iraqi economy.

If the UN is administering reconstruction then it's a safe bet that all countries will be represented in reconstruction. If the coalition or a coalition installed government administers reconstruction, the non-coalition EU countries won't be making much money in Iraq for a while.

[Azred]

Rest assured that a provisional government will be appointed--by the Coalition and not the UN--and then public elections will be held within 2 years. This will allow the Iraqi people to choose for themselves who the first post-Hussein leader will be; most likely their government will be some sort of Parliamentary setup (that form is popular and works reasonably well).

The UN should have nothing to do with the reconstuction of Iraq. As a body it did not want to remove Hussein, so why should it get to sit in on the post-Hussein reconstruction? The UN can watch from the sidelines and continue to sit on its own thumb. (No, I don't like the UN at all, in case you can't tell. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] )

On the other hand, the more that companies from many countries, including France, Germany, Russia, etc. invest in the reconstruction of Iraq the more the economy of Iraq will be woven into the world economy. This will force Iraq into a choice--isolate itself again (and lag behind) or continue to grow as a member of the world economic community (and enjoy a new era of prosperity). No, the prosperity won't happen right away for the common Iraqi citizen, but within a decade the situation should be much better. In the meantime, the reconstructing companies should hire as many native Iraqis as possible to help funnel money into the hands of those who need it.

Just like in Afghanistan, the two most worrisome problems that will face post-Hussein Iraq are 1) regional warlords and 2) pro-Hussein lackeys trying to become an organized force in the new government.

[Skunk]

So far there is NO indication this promise will NOT be kept. None, zero, zip... absolutely none whatsoever.

Hang on, wasn't the port at Umm Qaasr a national state run industry?
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0330-08.htm
Oh, guess not.
But the oil is a national industry right?
Well maybe not for long...
http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/532p16.htm

Surely you are not so naive. Everyone wants their companies to be in on the pie - why wouldn't they? They DO care.

Why wouldn't we? Because Europeans are not Americans - we don't share the same values. If we did, topless bathing would be common on US beaches, eh?

So if they accept whatever governemnt is put in place then France, Russia, and whoever else has no saying or importance period.

An army will be camped on their soil - what choice do they have but to accept the imposed government? Only a *POPULAR VOTE* can say what the Iraqi's want - and yes, even the Ba'ath party should be allowed to stand for election, because that is democracy.

Reconstruction costs will be payed for by Iraqi oil not coalition funds, and who wouldn't want in on the action.

What was the $75billion that congress voted for then? A good deal of the money will be channeled through USAID - and that I have no problem with.

The UN should have nothing to do with the reconstuction of Iraq.

Fair enough - if you don't mind another 9/11, followed by 10/11, 11/11, 12/11...

[Timber Loftis]

Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Surely you are not so naive. Everyone wants their companies to be in on the pie - why wouldn't they? They DO care. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why wouldn't we? Because Europeans are not Americans - we don't share the same values. If we did, topless bathing would be common on US beaches, eh?

Cute, but a non-answer. A German/French company has already entered a bid on providing wireless service in Iraq. French ambassadors have flat-out said the coalition should not be the only nations to rebuild. UK newspapers are widely and wildly reporting concerns that UK companies won't get a fair shake.

It is silly or dishonest of you to pretend European countries don't want to see their private businesses do well or get contracts. EU countries are very supportive of their businesses. Yes, maybe you guys are a bit more used to being hyper-regulated over there, but the general structure and politics of the government vis-a-vis the businesses is the same. Otherwise, a subsidy would not have been provided to AirBus to help it gain control of the market over and above United Airlines.

Plus, I see it as a bit aloof to pretend you have a monopoly on compassion. I promise you that many of us in the US see ourselves as doing a great humanitarian thing here.