The US administration led by President Bush came to office in January 2001 with an attitude of scorn towards the nation-building efforts of its immediate predecessor. It is therefore a supreme irony that President George W. Bush is now embracing plans for a US military governor to run Iraq, in a way that is reminiscent of General Douglas MacArthur in post-1945 Japan.
In defining Bushs security strategy at the start of his administration, Condoleezza Rice wrote (in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000):
The president must remember that the military is a special instrument. It is lethal, and it is meant to be. It is not a civilian police force. It is not a political referee. And it is most certainly not designed to build a civilian society. While the US government has not yet formally declared its comprehensive post-war plan for Iraq, a fairly consistent picture has emerged through a combination of leaks to the press and comments by US government officials. The model proposed indeed resembles the allied occupation of Germany and Japan after the second world war, and is even more comprehensive than are the recent UN administrations in East Timor or Kosovo.
In Germany and Japan, democratisation efforts were directed entirely by the military (the US, British and French militaries in Germany, and the US military alone in Japan) even though civilian agencies, such as the US treasury, worked together with the military to implement reforms. In East Timor and Kosovo, the UN has been entrusted with a protectorate role, and the international militaries have operated with robust peace enforcement rules to reinforce the civilian presence.
The US administration in Iraq is intended to be short-term, under the overall command of a retired general, Jay Garner, until such time that power can be transferred to Iraqis. The plan that is emerging allocates to the UN only a coordinating role for emergency relief, although George W. Bush hinted on 8 April (probably because of continued prodding by Tony Blair) that the UN may be asked to do more. Even so, the US government will deploy military and civilian personnel throughout Iraq and in the ministries, accompanied by appointed Iraqi advisers, to perform every significant governance task.
On the military side, US secretary of state Colin Powell recently suggested that Nato might have a role in peacekeeping in Iraq, though it is unclear if the French and Germans would support this option. The reality is most likely to resemble the model of post-December 2001 Afghanistan: an improvised coalition led by one or two states. In the latter case, the force was led first by Britain, then Turkey, and now by a joint German-Dutch command. This ordering has ensured command coherence. Of course, all four countries belong to Nato, and the operation may indeed soon become a Nato-run endeavour.
Post-war Iraq: the case for UN-Nato authority
An appropriate authority has to govern in the crucial post-war transition period in Iraq, until all aspects of governance can be transferred to the Iraqi people. The divisions within the Security Council of the United Nations (as well as Nato and the EU) provoked by the Iraq crisis have led to strong arguments not least by Frank Vibert and Edward Mortimer in openDemocracy over the role and future of these organisations in relation to the problems created by terrorism, failed states, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
My recent book, Democracy by Force, examines some of these arguments in the context of the US military intervention in the post-cold war period. In the immediate context of Iraq, there are five reasons why I believe that governing authority in the transitional period should devolve on the UN for civilian functions, and Nato for military instead of both being led by the US government. (US capabilities in promoting democracy are strictly irrelevant to this argument).
The UNs learning process
The first reason is that, after recognised UN failures in Somalia and Rwanda in the 1990s, the UN has redeemed itself in nation-building (more accurately state-building) with relative, recent successes in the eastern Slavonia region of Croatia, in Kosovo, and in East Timor. Relative and recent are equally important qualifiers because democracy is not built overnight; think again of Germany and Japan, where occupation lasted for years (indeed US troops are still in both countries in large numbers). In these recent cases, the UN has been primarily responsible for administering the territories from executive policing, providing electricity and sanitation, to setting up municipal councils and assemblies.
The judgment that the UN should wield authority in the transition period in Iraq is based on direct experience as well as academic research.
In Somalia, I worked for both the European Union and the UN after the departure of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). Each organisation promoted innovative approaches to resolve intractable disputes in a country that today still does not have a recognised central government with a remit over the entire territory (though there are several vibrant regional and local authorities). We failed in Somalia not because our approaches were inappropriate, but because they were inadequate: the major powers were too scarred by the UNOSOM experience to provide the political and financial support needed to help Somalis rebuild their country.
Kosovo, by contrast, had a sharply different mandate after the war of March-June 1999 which freed the territory from Serbian control. I joined the United Nations Interim Administration Mission (UNMIK) mission in January 2000, just as the UN was beginning the fairly lengthy and complicated process of Kosovarisation passing authority in the mission to the Kosovars themselves.
The overall strategy was pushed through by a dedicated and politically astute UN leader, Bernard Kouchner, supported by a strong team seconded from European foreign ministries and UN missions from all over the world. The strategy had the full endorsement and involvement of the major powers, and significant financial support. The UN remained wholly in charge of administering Kosovo for only seven months; from January 2000, Kouchner ensured that Kosovars were brought in to all aspects of government, from the municipalities through to the various departments. All international staff knew that Kosovo was to be run by its people, and we considered ourselves successful when we transitioned ourselves out of a job. Despite the numerous problems encountered in Kosovo at every turn, the UN demonstrated its competence.
The most serious criticism of the UN experience in Kosovo one that equally applies to East Timor is that the UN lacked (and lacks) the necessary overarching strategic framework for embarking on state-building at all.
Instead, the UN relied too heavily on the personalities at the top and middle ranks of the missions, and on their accumulated experiences in democratisation. There was no advance planning (also known as strategic gaming, experiential learning or scenario planning) which is a vital component for this kind of project, but (for political reasons) nearly impossible to do at the UN.
Yet, while the missions were hastily assembled and both Kosovars and East Timorese suffered to a degree from an improvised approach, the UN did achieve its core objectives, and today can claim considerable expertise in interim administration.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), along with the Association of the US Army, recently prepared a strategic framework for post-conflict reconstruction; this is now supplemented by a report card for Iraq. A UN administration in Iraq could utilise this model as a basis to establish the interim authority necessary to give Iraqis the breathing-space to decide what kind of power-sharing arrangements they want, and how to structure their leadership.
These latter decisions will largely depend on the power vacuums that will be created in governance in the post-Baathist period the experiences of looting in Basra and Baghdad are examples of this. It is yet unclear exactly how much external assistance will be required in Iraq.
The UN and Nato: a question of legitimacy
The second reason why the UN should be the repository of civilian authority in post-war Iraq, and Nato of military authority, relates to the legitimacy of these multilateral organisations.
The UN is recognised as the only neutral and morally legitimate world body. No other state or regional organisation can claim an equivalent status. It is true that the UN has frequently been accused of being a pawn of US administrations, but events in the UN Security Council in the prelude to the Iraq war demonstrate that if this ever was the case, it is so no longer.
For comparable reasons, it is preferable that Nato direct the post-war military endeavour, instead of either a joint US-UK force or the UN itself (which still needs to improve its military capability in peacekeeping operations). Nato has demonstrated its competence in the Balkans, and also offers greater legitimacy than would a joint US-UK peacekeeping operation.
The role of civil authority
The third reason is one of the most valuable principles of democratic societies, the subservience of military to civilian rule. It is extremely important for symbolic reasons, in environments where the entire aim of the exercise is to build a democratic and accountable state, not to allow these roles to be reversed. This is especially the case in Iraq, a country where civil authority has been under military control for many years.
The costs of reconstruction
The fourth reason is that the operation in Iraq will be very expensive; the best way for its immense costs to be shared will be if the administration of Iraq is transferred from the current coalition to the UN, until Iraqis agree on their own political and administrative arrangements. It would seem illogical for the US government to assume that others will share the financial burden of decisions and problems that the US alone takes and potentially creates.
The terrorist dimension
The fifth reason why a UN-Nato arrangement in post-war Iraq is preferable to the current US strategy of its own civilian and military command relates to one of the stated aims of this war: the prevention of terrorism.
The avoidance of any manifest US occupation of Iraq is crucial to thwart what could otherwise become a successful recruitment campaign by al-Qaida. Such an occupation would serve to enrage Islamic extremists, while humiliating moderate Muslims, and increase anti-Americanism in many parts of the world. A UN-led, Nato-controlled, administration in Iraq backed by a serious US-commitment, would remove that perception.
The Washington Post of 26 February 2003 retrieved a criticism of Al Gore by his rival candidate on the very eve of the presidential elections of November 2000. George W. Bush then declared: Let me tell you what else Im worried about: Im worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence.
Today, as the Iraqi regime falls and the world prepares to help Iraq, many other people are also worried.