Iraq: Only a true end to occupation will bring Peace by Salim Lone The Guardian 9:32pm 20th Nov, 2003   20th November, 2003    As part of the get-rough strategy just introduced in Iraq, US forces are striking with missiles, dropping 500lb bombs and using heavy bombardment on suspected insurgent hideouts in the civilian neighbourhoods of pro-resistance cities. US military commanders are openly talking of intimidating the "opposition" in such neighbourhoods, and also threatening mayors, tribal chiefs and farmers with "stern" measures unless they curb the militants who are attacking coalition troops.    Across the Atlantic, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, tries to intimidate his own critics, made resurgent again by President Bush's visit, by lumping all those fighting occupation forces as "fanatics". Their defeat, he went on, "will mean the death of poisonous propaganda... about America".    The irony of this new coalition blitz is that it is being launched simultaneously with a new, and, in principle, laudable, strategy of giving primacy to Iraqi sovereignty. And to win support for this new pro-sovereignty policy, which he had earlier rejected, the US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, reassured America that the interim Iraqi constitution will embody "American values". So much for convincing Iraqis that they are about to be free again.    All those who have goodwill towards the US, the UK and Iraq must be in utter despair at the coalition's refusal to countenance the far-reaching changes in policy needed to reverse the bloody chaos in Iraq which could spiral out of control and further destabilise the region and the world, as the first Gulf war did. So a temporary occupation, which was the most that even pro-US Iraqis were prepared to tolerate, has been turned to war again, and the choice of widespread use of force seen as the only way to better protect coalition troops.    Little seems to have been learned from the blunders which this summer enraged central Iraq and Baghdad, and prevented a quick, successful US exit from the country. The coalition provisional authority, lurching haplessly to find fixes to a crisis that daily confounds its many new strategies, seems unaware that the planned transfer of power to its own choice of Iraqis will not stop the attacks on troops or the terrorist outrages against innocent civilians. The hasty nature of this transfer to another unelected body could also unravel for good the prospects for sustainable peace and democracy in Iraq.    The new war and aspects of the sovereignty plan have already further inflamed anti-occupation passions well beyond the reassuringly labelled "Sunni triangle", including senior Shia clerics who have restrained their huge, increasingly restive followings by criticising the occupation but counselling patience as the best tactic for achieving their goals.    What will bring peace to Iraq is a true end of occupation. This would require that the introduction of urgently needed new, and infinitely more inclusive, political arrangements than those represented by the governing council - which failed entirely in establishing its leadership legitimacy - be managed not by the US, whose motives are intensely distrusted in the Arab world, but by an international force and mission led by the United Nations.    Given the widespread Arab perception of the UN as essentially doing US bidding, this mission would have to be free of US control and have an unquestionable pro-Iraqi mandate. This would include guaranteeing all democratic factions equal access to political opportunity.    Even then, mobilising the UN would provide no assurance of success, and its political presence would obviously need the kinds of security protection articulated by Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who would of course have to vet closely the nature of the mission's mandate. Even such a UN effort would be attacked by the resistance, but its comprehensively pro-Iraqi mandate would undercut the insurgents by winning strong national support, including that of the Sunnis, and by negotiations with resistance groups. UN leadership of the political process would also eliminate the powerful electoral pressures which would otherwise dictate every US move. Such a UN mission would be worth the obvious risks because it could potentially bring peace to Iraq. The first UN mission was given an inconsequential and highly contradictory mandate by the security council, for which risking UN lives was a needless tragedy.    The head of that first Iraq UN mission - the vastly experienced negotiator of bitterly divided, post-conflict societies that enjoyed the strong backing of the US administration, the late Sergio Vieira de Mello - had himself concluded three months ago, when the insurgency was basically in its infancy, that only short-lived coalition rule would have worked in Iraq. Even many of the Iraqis who had initially supported the invasion were bristling under an intolerable level of lawlessness and insecurity and expressing strong opposition to the occupation. The critical issue in Iraq from the very beginning was not only war but occupation. Occupation is always an explosive matter, and that of an Arab nation by the US particularly so, given its total support for Israel, which itself occupies Palestine and Syria's Golan Heights.    The majority of ordinary Arabs, and Muslims, are in fact convinced that the US is bent on a crusade to crush them and control or occupy their lands, and now the UK has opened itself to the same pernicious perception. Yes, this is how embattled, even mainstream, Muslims feel, even though they gravitated towards the US for decades until the 1980s, and would do so again if the US extended them friendship. But, at the moment, any claim that the US is in Iraq to help Iraqis is met with derision. Not a single pro-invasion Iraqi I met in Baghdad thought that altruism was the principal motivation for the war.    And so this occupation faces severe difficulties. Indeed, the significant improvements in security and essential services, which were considered key anti-insurgency tools, have been accompanied by a parallel escalation of destructive attacks and a decreased Iraqi confidence in the US ability to stay the course.    Clearly, the major coalition policy failures and misreadings of the Iraqi situation have given us a crisis to which there are no easy answers any more. But it is not too late to mobilise in Iraq the UN's expertise in reconciling deeply torn post-conflict societies. Mr Blair is reported to be planning to use this visit to convince President Bush of the need for a major policy shift in favour of a softer approach.    His bellicose language at the lord mayor's banquet seems not to have followed that script. Be that as it may, he must persuade the president, and himself, that having radically advanced the timetable for Iraqi sovereignty, it is only a genuinely neutral UN - with no vested interests of its own - that can bring that about, since it would potentially have Iraqis' and the region's support.    As the prime minister himself pointed out at the banquet, Iraq is too central an issue to peace in the Middle East and the world for the two allies not to consider a dramatic rethinking of its occupation policies. If Iraq can be peaceful again, the US, as the overwhelming and unchallenged political, military and economic power in the world, and through alliances it has established in the country, will exercise immense influence.    It should never have launched this pre-emptive war, which was bound to inflame Arab and Muslim passions and which in fact the whole world had clamorously opposed. But with the active support of Mr Blair, President Bush pushed ahead. The two have now achieved their goal of deposing Saddam Hussein's regime. They do not need to advance their interests through a continuing occupation, given its extraordinarily high political, moral and human costs.    (Salim Lone was director of communications for the UN mission in Baghdad. He retired on September 30). Visit the related web page
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