Our long-term interests are best served by U.S. officials with a generous, far-sighted vision of postwar Iraq, not those motivated by greed and revenge.
Published April 6, 2003
Gen. Tommy Franks' war plan in Iraq was devised with an eye toward winning the peace once the war is won. The lightning blitz of U.S. troops north toward Iraq largely bypassed the kind of urban warfare that could increase civilian casualties and complicate postwar reconciliation. The battle in and around Baghdad is taking similar shape. More than in any previous war, bombing targets have been limited to avoid religious sites and civilian populations. Oil fields and other important economic assets have been secured. U.S. and British troops also have made extraordinary efforts to overcome obstacles impeding the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Yet the chaos of war inevitably compromises efforts to limit civilian casualties and win popular support. In some regions of Iraq, coalition troops have been welcomed by people desperate for liberation. In other parts of the country, they have been met with wariness or open hostility. Civilians have been mistakenly killed at checkpoints where suicide bombers previously struck. Other Iraqis have been killed and maimed by stray bombs and bullets. Such accidents of war can create enemies even among people who had no love for Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Gruesome scenes of civilian casualties, removed from the broader context of the war, are ceaselessly replayed by media in Islamic countries, stoking anti-American sentiment.
Winning friends in Iraq and neighboring countries will be at least as difficult as winning the war. Secretary of State Colin Powell, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders already have begun working toward a multinational framework for overseeing Iraq during the transition to a stable, post-Hussein society. But some of the civilian planners in the Bush administration have different motivations. They see military victory in Iraq as an opportunity to assert American dominance in the region, profit from Iraq's postwar reconstruction, press a divisive ideological agenda and settle old grudges.
Powell met with European leaders last week and said he sensed "a coming together of the trans-Atlantic community to work on the rebuilding" of Iraq. However, the rest of the Bush administration hasn't come together on the issue. Some White House hawks are adamant that U.S. authorities should control the political, military and economic structure of postwar Iraq. U.N. agencies have a strong record in postwar peacekeeping, but some administration officials have no interest in working with an institution that complicated their war plans. Even our NATO partners could be closed out. As U.S. corporations maneuver for reconstruction contracts, some Washington politicians are working to bar companies based in France, Germany, Turkey and other countries whose support was deemed inadequate. Some private agencies planning to bring aid to Iraq are more interested in religious proselytizing than humanitarian action.
As a practical matter, U.S. and British authorities need to maintain control during a transition period that will lead Iraq from the chaos of war toward the stability of normal life. But there are obvious reasons for welcoming broad international participation in Iraq's reconstruction as soon as possible. Why would U.S. authorities not want other governments to bear their share of the costs and risks of overseeing Iraq? Why would they not want to create a multinational structure that would allay fears in the Islamic world about U.S. dominion in the region?
Our most successful postwar reconstructions were based on far-sighted generosity, such as the post-World War II commitments that led to thriving democracies in Germany and Japan and spurred global progress. The world's most disastrous postwar failures have resulted from unchecked greed and revenge. Our military planners have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that Iraq's postwar future can fit the post-World War II model. Our political planners will do our nation and the world a disservice if they plot Iraq's future on the basis of less noble motives.
[Last modified April 6, 2003, 01:16:49]
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