Liberty and the Defeat of Terrorism—Or A More Powerful UN
WHAT WILL WE CHOOSE?
By Marilyn M. Brannan, Assoc. Editor
Unravelling The New World Order

In his recent press conference, President Bush made crystal-clear his position on the war in Iraq:

“The defeat of violence and terror in Iraq is vital to the defeat of violence and terror elsewhere, and vital, therefore, to the safety of the American people.  Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world.  We must not waver. . . .
 
“The consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable.  Every friend of America and Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder as a new tyranny arose.  Every enemy of America and the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers.
 
“We will succeed in Iraq. . . . Iraq will be a free, independent country, and America and the Middle East will be safer because of it. . . . We serve the cause of liberty, and that is always . . . a cause worth serving.”

Thus, Bush made clear his resolve: (1) to vigorously prosecute the war on violence and terrorism in Iraq, (2) to work diligently to make liberty a reality in Iraq and the Middle East, and (3) to defend America’s national security interests.

In stark contrast to that is John Kerry’s position. In a recent interview with Tim Russert, Kerry stated:

“If I'm president, I will not only personally go to the UN, I will go to other capitals. . . I will immediately reach out to other nations in a very different way from this administration.  Within weeks of being inaugurated, I will return to the UN and I will literally, formally rejoin the community of nations and turn over a proud new chapter in America's relationship with the world.”

Michael Rubin (who spent 16 months in Iraq, most recently as a Coalition Provisional Authority governance advisor), commented recently, “As violence flares in Iraq, so does Washington discussion over the United Nations’ role in Iraq” (“Unwelcome UN,” National Observer Online, April 14, 2004).

John Kerry's formula for dealing with Iraq always seems to boil down to a single idea: Shrink the U.S. role in Iraq and defer to the United Nations. 

Kerry has for months declared Bush a “failure” for not kowtowing to the UN, and he has vowed that if elected president, he will give the UN the commanding role he believes it deserves. In a recent Washington Post column on Iraq (April 13) Kerry wrote, “The United Nations, not the United States, should be the primary civilian partner in working with Iraqi leaders to hold elections, restore government services, rebuild the economy, and recreate a sense of hope and optimism among the Iraqi people.” He also stated, “[T]he administration must make the United Nations a full partner responsible for developing Iraq's transition to a new constitution and government.”

In his speech on Iraq at the Brookings Institution last fall, Kerry stated, “This shift of authority from the United States to the United Nations is indispensable.” Kerry mentioned the UN no fewer than 25 times in that speech.  By contrast, he mentioned terrorism only seven times—and freedom, democracy, and the Middle East, not at all.

Democratic Senators Robert Byrd and Joseph Biden have also called for the U.S. to cede political authority to the UN. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, has argued that “legitimacy” in Iraq could only be tied to a UN resolution.

“Unwelcome UN”
Speaking to reporters in New Hampshire on April 12, Senator John Kerry suggested UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as a possible successor to Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer.

However, Michael Rubin notes that the “Foggy Bottom” crowd and the Capitol Hill cocktail circuit have quite different views than do the Iraqi people of what should be the role of the UN in Iraq. “Perhaps Brahimi is welcome in New York or Kabul,” Rubin says, “but he is not in Baghdad.”
As undersecretary of the Arab League between 1984 and 1991, Brahimi did nothing as Saddam Hussein conducted a campaign to drive Iraqi Kurds from Kirkuk and surrounding villages and when the Iraqi government dropped chemical weapons that killed 5,000 Kurdish civilians.

Following the end of the first Gulf War, Brahimi left the Arab League to become Algeria's foreign minister. As tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia were massacred in the aftermath of the Gulf War, Brahimi again declined to use his influence to intervene. As dozens of mass graves throughout Iraq have been uncovered, pictures of Brahimi hugging Tariq Aziz (who is expected to face charges of crimes against humanity in his former role as deputy prime minister to Saddam Hussein) have circulated widely in Iraq.

Kurds express disdain for the UN, citing colossal abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food program.

“While we were selling our possessions to make ends meet, UN officials were making millions off our sweat,” one Baghdad municipal councilman told Michael Rubin. “Iraqis described UN workers under Saddam's regime as ‘little kings’ . . . and locals still refer to Arab UN workers as the ‘Egyptian and Sudanese mafia.’”

Any moral standing remaining to the UN ended after UN weapons inspectors returned to Iraq in the fall of 2002 after a four-year absence. Endangered Iraqis who appealed to UN security guards for protection from Saddam’s thugs were routinely handed over to Iraqi soldiers and soon disappeared, likely executed. Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector, showed no remorse and offered no help. He suggested to the Danish daily Jyllands Posten on April 7 of this year that Iraqis were “better off under Saddam.” With freedom of communication available now to Iraqi citizens, the details of such formerly unreported incidents involving UN officials have become widely known in Iraq; and even though the Iraqis may not be enamored of Paul Bremer, it is likely they would like governance by the UN even less.

Still, some Iraqis would welcome a UN presence. On April 6, the Arabic satellite channel al Jazeera reported that Islamists and militants fighting in Fallujah were demanding UN involvement. These militants understand that if UN involvement displaces U.S. influence in Iraq, Islamists could bypass the democratic will among Iraqis and involve Iran and Saudi Arabia in Iraqi affairs.

United Nations involvement can only hamper, not help. Militant Islamists and remnants of Saddam's regime interpret U.S. politicians’ demands for UN involvement as a sign of weakness; but Iraqis hoping for self-rule see an increasing UN role as a sign of abandonment by the U.S. Interestingly, both groups associate the UN with corruption

Two Choices
No one would dispute that Iraq is a huge and complicated problem for the United States right now. There are intractable forces at work against us there; evil and oppressive regimes do not die without a furious struggle, and those who profited from the misery of millions of Iraqis will not quickly relinquish their hold on power. In hindsight we see that going into the war, our leaders did not fully understand the complexity of the Iraqi society. It could be said that some of our decisions for dealing with the Iraqi people have not been sufficiently informed or politically prudent. Given all that, the transition to some form of self-rule for the Iraqis could take years; and the American people, if they are to support the process, must understand the broad implications of our involvement in that part of the world.

It seems we have two choices: We will devote our energies and resources either to the cause of liberty and the defeat of terrorism—or to the cause of a more powerful UN. Given the deplorable track record of the UN on the defense of individual liberty and human rights, and given its virtually non-existent capacity to act decisively against the forces of terrorism, it is clear the two options are virtually incompatible. It will be one or the other.

Insofar as our involvement in Iraq is concerned, it appears that in this first presidential election since 9-11, that is the choice the American people must make.