"America is in a difficult situation but all of its own making" by Malcolm Fraser The Age 9:48am 7th Nov, 2003   November 7, 2003    Western society has been and remains deeply divided about the Iraq war. While the debate about the justice or the wisdom of the war should continue, the more important question today is: how can the independence of Iraq as a sovereign state be achieved?    The US adheres to its view that significant progress is being made, and even claims security is improving. Almost daily, however, Americans and Iraqis die or are wounded. More Americans have been killed since the war ended than during the war itself. The American idea of a benign democracy rapidly rising from the ashes of war now looks like an impossible dream.    While no analogy is fully accurate, there are some similarities with Vietnam. Iraq has become a guerilla war. As with Vietnam, those attacking the structures of Iraq and the occupation forces have no need to hold territory or provide security. It has been suggested that in Vietnam there was a civilian population sympathetic to the Vietcong that does not exist in Iraq. But such views forget that, in the early stages of the Vietnam War at least, US leaders told us we were supporting the right of the south to be free, and that's what the people in the south wanted.    The similarity with Vietnam is more uncomfortable than the occupying forces like to believe. The purpose in both cases is to show that the US and those co-operating with it cannot provide security. In that, they are so far succeeding.    We are told those attacking the US are remnants of Saddam Hussein's army, or terrorists from within or without Iraq. But we cannot reject the possibility that nationalist Iraqis are also involved. Most Iraqis now want the occupying forces out. They do not want to be governed for long by foreign infidels.    America is in a difficult situation but all of its own making. America's will, says President Bush, will hold strong. More than one president said that about Vietnam, and in the end America withdrew in defeat. It is not in any of our interests, however, to see America defeated or humiliated as she was at the end of the Vietnam saga.    The recent UN Security Council resolution providing a mandate for coalition forces in Iraq was a first, small step towards a solution.    At present the US maintains full political authority in Iraq. Contracts for reconstruction are let by America, mostly to American companies. Iraqis are not participating in important decisions affecting the country.    Guerilla attacks are better co-ordinated and increasingly dangerous. The Iraqi Governing Council is beginning to realise that to be effective, it must become increasingly nationalistic. America wants Turkish troops in the country, the council does not. How can this disordered and dangerous situation be turned around?    The US strategy will need revision if American forces are to avoid further humiliation. Despite earlier bombast, President Bush has accepted he needs the UN. He needs to recognise that the costs of staying in Iraq in current circumstances are most unlikely to be successful and that the real act of statesmanship available to him is to change course. He may have to trade some loss of face now for what he could later claim to be ultimate success.    It would involve the following steps. Full political control would be ceded in the Security Council, but on certain conditions. Major states, including major Islamic states, would need to commit themselves to the process and support an appeal for funds and resources, including troops.    President Bush snr's international coalition of the first Gulf War would re-emerge in a different form. The reconstruction of Iraq would be fully "internationalised". Iraqis would increasingly be making decisions concerning their own country.    Where US presence in Iraq encourages terrorists and Iraqi nationalists in their guerilla war, the UN with a diverse group of states, including Islamic states, offers the only hope of an early and peaceful outcome.    Continuing on the present course will divide and destabilise the world and make it increasingly difficult to justify the claim that the war against terror is not a war against Islam. To this point the war in Iraq has significantly set back the war against terror.    Whatever happens, I do not believe the US, or anyone else for that matter, will embark on further pre-emptive wars. Nations will turn back to the UN and recognise that the only ultimate security will come through the processes of the Security Council and the slow development of a strong system of international law.    By putting a further resolution to the UN some weeks ago, the US itself has recognised that even the most powerful and wealthy country in the world needs the rest of the world.    If the US took the steps I have suggested, it would be accused, perhaps, of lacking resolve. The choices, however, may ultimately not be for the US to take, because if it stays on its present course and the guerilla attacks continue with their present intensity, America will ultimately withdraw, and not in victory.    Far better to internationalise this situation now, to return it to the Security Council but on condition the international community is fully involved in devising and implementing steps for Iraq's reconstruction and early political freedom.    (Malcolm Fraser is a former Australian Liberal prime minister).
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