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Saturday, April 19, 2003

# Posted 12:37 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

AN ANSWER FOR KEVIN: Revealing quite a bit about the premises on which his wordview rests, Kevin Drum asks
Now, it's true that the UN has its problems, and I certainly know that conservatives just generally despise the UN, but this got me thinking. What exactly do they have against letting the UN have a say in rebuilding the Iraqi government? How would they mess it up? By proposing tax rates that were too progressive?

What's the deal here?
Kev, where do I start? How about with this op-ed from the NYT which explains how the UN Oil-For-Food program is the living embodiment of opacity, bureaucratic incompetence, greed and one-sided politicization? Now, I myself have pointed to some of the problems one might run into if American coporations dominate the reconstruction process. But very, very few those corporations could match the UN bureaucracy vice for vice (except when it comes to greed, of course.)

Even when it comes to opacity, American corporations tend to be far more transparent than the UN, the IMF or the World Bank. And if working on government contracts, it won't be hard at all for the occupation authorities to demand a full accounting of corporate behavior.

In a later post, Kevin raises some other questions about the occupation and the importance of multilateral legitimacy. He writes:
[Fred] Barnes, I think, is absolutely correct that establishing a decent successor state in Iraq is a long process that requires considerable commitment from the United States. If we're serious about it, we'll stay put for a while.

But the critics are also right: a long and substantial occupation by the United States is just begging for trouble. Not only will it leave the unavoidable taint of neo-colonialism, but it also acts as a magnet for terrorist recruiting. The kind of young Arab who leans toward terrorism will almost certainly be easier to recruit if the local al-Qaeda representatives have an occupying force of Americans to point to year after year.

I suspect there's no really good solution to this, but there's an obvious one that could at least help: the United Nations. Or, more to the point, the United Nations with the full backing and commitment of the United States. Properly constituted, a UN force could provide the stability and guidance Iraq needs without the symbolic provocation that the United States military represents.
First of all, let's think about the logic of the terrorist recruitment point. What Kevin is saying is that the simple presence of American armed forces -- regardless of whether they are promoting democracy and rebuilding infrastructure or hijacking the oil industry and installing dictators -- will lead young Iraqis into the arms of Al Qaeda. This argument suggests, as so many backlash arguments do, that Arabs are incapable of evaluating the actual impact of American behavior simply because they have reasonable suspicions about American motives.

The same criticism applies to Kevin's point about the "taint of neo-colonialism". What exactly is neo-colonialism? A temporary occupation whose purpose is political and economic reconstruction, or the installation of a puppet government that will faciliate foreign exploitation of Iraqi natural resources? I think the people of Iraq won't have all that much trouble differentiating the one from the other.

Now what about the UN? The Oil-For-Food program already demonstrates why the United Nations may not be a source of "stability and guidance". But I'd like to provide a few more. First of all, major decisions regarding the occupation will be subject to Security Council approval. Given the drawn out and ultimately failed bargaining process that prevented the emergence of any sort of consensus on the invasion of Iraq, there is every reason to believe that conflicts over occupation policy will be no less intense.

Instead of focusing on the interests of the Iraqi people, the Security Council will approach all decisions in terms of whether they steer Iraq in a pro-American or anti-American direction. Moreover, no one will have serious concerns about what might happen if the occupation fails, since such an event could always be blamed on the other members of the Council. (One might even say that three of the members have an incentive to promote failure, since it would discredit the invasion.)

Now, if only the US and UK run the occupation, it will almost definitely be steered in a pro-American direction. BUT, if the US and UK direct the occupation, their reputations will be invested in its success. Moreover, since the United States and United Kingdom have already defined success as the emergence of a stable and democratic Iraq, their interests are closer to those of the Iraqi people than any of the other Security Council members.

On some issues, there will be considerable conflict. When it comes to awarding contracts, there is no question that an American occupation will favor American corporations, probably unfairly. But that is a small price to pay for an occupation authority with a single-minded commitment to success.

The one serious concern I have is that the US will provide political and economic support to Iraqi political parties that are explicity pro-American, regardless of their merits or shortcomings. But even that sort of misconduct is better than a situation in which each of five powers is searching for proxies who will advance its interests on the playing field of Iraqi politics.

Kevin, I hope can persuade you on this one. If we can establish a bipartisan consensus on the importance of an American-led reconstruction effort, then Gen. Garner & Co. can focus on getting their job done instead of worrying about politics back on Capitol Hill and in Turtle Bay.
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