Disarmament Diplomacy

Editorial

Resisting the Poisoned Chalice: The UN and the Aftermath of War

By Rebecca Johnson

Now that US tanks have rolled into Baghdad and The Coalition is declaring victory, we need to think not only about the reconstruction of Iraq but the reconstruction of international relations. The United Nations was condemned as irrelevant by the White House when the Security Council failed to grant a second resolution cutting short UNMOVIC/IAEA inspections and authorising the use of overwhelming military force to disarm Saddam. If not irrelevant, then according to the received wisdom of one pundit after another, the UN has been seriously - perhaps fatally - wounded. But is this near-consensus right? Serious questions about the relationship between international law, force and diplomacy are on the table in full public view. After paying unprecedented attention to the Security Council deliberations over the resolutions on Iraq, millions took to the streets to call on the United States and Britain to heed the UN. Is it inevitable that American neoconservativism will debilitate the UN or could it emerge stronger in the long run?

Such a question begs another: what do we mean by the United Nations? Is it the diplomats of 191 nations crowded into the General Assembly, with one vote per state? Or the 15-member Security Council, a narrow, fluctuating cross-section of world opinion dominated - and, many argue, distorted - by the five permanent members and their powerful vetoes? Or the gravely dignified, but practically marginalised figure of the UN's supreme manager, Kofi Annan, overseeing a large bureaucracy (with persistent problems of cronyism and inefficiency)? Or perhaps the vast array of "internationals" in the field, administering to people in zones on the edge of or emerging from war, with blue helmets and field hospitals, mopping up the messes left by the latest despot or rampaging army? It is all of these, but more than these: a collective security aspiration, in which the political and administrative functions need to be clearly distinguished.

Would the apparent damage to the UN be repaired if Washington now put the organisation in charge of establishing a postwar administration in Iraq, as France and Germany want? Or, at the very least, if the victors on the field let the UN deal with the huge humanitarian crisis in the country, as Britain's Tony Blair advocates? The latter scenario is, of course, far more likely. As Colin Powell bluntly explained: "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future." To the Victor belongs The Spoils, it seems. But while Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have made abundantly clear the Bush administration's determination to ensure American control over the political restructuring of Iraq - at least as long as it takes to divvy up the lucrative contracts and concessions - the US may well be delighted to 'give' the UN a primary role in providing emergency assistance for the Iraqi people. Those eager to grasp at this straw as if it were a lifeline to reinforce the UN, or a sign that the US realises it needs multilateral support, should think again.

Who wouldn't be happy to shuck off responsibility for clearing up the mess? Millions of Iraqis are impoverished and undernourished after long years of Saddam, sanctions and now aerial bombardments. Their land is contaminated with unexploded cluster bombs and the toxic dust of depleted uranium shells. Even before being looted (as US troops looked on from the turrets of their tanks), the hospitals and schools were held together mainly by their meagrely-paid, dedicated staff, making do with inadequate equipment.

Aid is crucial for the Iraqi people, but what are the longer-term implications for the UN if it keeps accepting such mopping-up responsibilities while being pushed out of its founding political purpose, established after 1945, to manage, defuse and resolve conflicts - to do all in its collective power to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war"? How much putting-back-together of broken lands and peoples can be accomplished with budgets only a fraction of those poured into the armaments causing the destruction - and perpetuating the cycles of domination and rebellion - in the first place?

For those committed to the renewal of the UN - and, therewith, the belated, but necessary, development of a 'human security' agenda from the broken shell of Cold War militarism and rivalry - the challenge is twofold: to back up right-sounding words with much-needed reforms and to back up the responsibilities with adequate political, structural and, yes, financial resources, so that the UN can meet and manage the security challenges of the 21st century.

Bush would no doubt like to see the UN reduced to the role of chief mopper-upper. For the more the US imposes, the more it will need others to dispose. Paradoxically for the neoconservatives, they need a limited UN to mediate US hegemony. This is a poisoned chalice that the United Nations must resist.

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© 2003 The Acronym Institute.