Iraq

U.S., U.N. once again joining hands in Iraq

A month ago, the United States and United Nations couldn't have been further apart on Iraq. The Bush administration had always demanded total control of military and political operations, while the U.N. mission there had been all but shuttered after the ruinous bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August.

These days, the two are chatting amiably about cooperation, as each side seeks to gain from the other.

At the White House on Tuesday, President Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the United Nations would try to break the impasse between the United States and the majority Shiite Muslim leadership over how to hold elections in Iraq. This weekend, a U.N. team arrived in Iraq for the first stage of its work, a 10-day fact-finding mission.

Analysts say the United Nations has a fresh chance to prove its relevance, while last week's events also suggest that the Bush administration has acknowledged that it needs the world body's expertise and credibility.

James Dobbins, director for international security and defense policy at the Rand Corp., said this doesn't mean the United Nations eventually will replace the United States as the "central actor" in Iraq.

Tens of thousands of U.S. troops will be there for years, and Congress already has committed $21-billion for Iraqi reconstruction.

"But (the United States) needs the impartiality and the experience of the United Nations, it needs its legitimacy, and it needs the assistance of the U.N. to achieve its objective, which is a democratic Iraq," Dobbins said.

"It's a recognition that we can't do this alone. Perhaps a somewhat belated recognition, but a recognition."

David Birenbaum, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for U.N. management and reform and a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, said involving the U.N. in Iraqi elections also will help guard against charges that a new Iraqi government is simply a puppet of the United States.

U.N. participation also makes it more likely that other countries will contribute financial and military aid, Birenbaum said. The Bush administration alienated the United Nations last year by going to war in Iraq without its approval, and many of its most important members, including Germany and France, still believe it was wrong.

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority wants to hold regional caucuses to choose a transitional Iraqi government before it hands political control to the Iraqis on June 30.

Caucuses would spread control of the new government among Iraq's ethnic and religious groups. But Shiite clerics, led by Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, insist on direct elections, which would virtually ensure an Islamic, Shiite-led government. And Sistani is not negotiating with the Americans.

The United States maintains direct elections are impossible because of ongoing violence and technical issues, such as the lack of voter rolls and election law. But it also fears the Shiites would use their new power to exact revenge against the Sunnis, who ruled the country under Saddam Hussein and who often brutally persecuted the Shiites.

That would further destabilize the country, and an Islamic government may not be sympathetic to U.S. interests in the region.

Experts say the Shiites' position was foreseeable, and the Bush administration should have projected the breakdown when it proposed caucuses.

David Phillips, deputy director of the Center for Preventive Action at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said U.S. and British troops have thus far suffered few attacks in Shiite-controlled territories because they "took us at our word when we talked about democracy."

"They realized that their interests could be secured through the ballot rather than through violence," he said. "When we floated this idea of indirect caucuses, it was a huge red flag for them - they've been shortchanged by Ottoman and British and Baathist rule in the past, and it looked like another setup that would give them short shrift."

After meeting with Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Annan agreed to send the election specialists, promising they would "be open and talk to as many Iraqis as possible, to try and get to understand what it is that they are worried about."

He said he hoped "they will come to some consensus and agreement as to how to move forward."

The United Nations all but abandoned Iraq in August, when a massive car bomb exploded at its Baghdad headquarters, killing more than 20.

Most analysts say the United Nations has been eager to return. The Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq without U.N. approval last spring cast doubt on its relevance, and participating in postwar reconstruction would show it remains a vital, important organization.

"The administration always wanted the U.N. to be involved, but on our terms," said Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. "In this particular, very narrow case ... they're calling in the U.N. as a supposedly disinterested, objective third party.

"But they're doing that with the expectation that the U.N. will come up with same answer the United States has given Sistani."

But Phillips, a former senior adviser to the U.S. State Department, said he expects the U.N. team to return with a report that pleases neither the Bush administration nor the Shiite clerics.

The United Nations likely will conclude that caucuses won't give adequate representation to the Shiite majority, but that direct elections aren't possible, either, he said.

That will allow the United Nations to suggest a temporary alternative: Convene a conference of leaders from Iraq's ethnic and religious groups and let them craft a provisional government, similar to the Bonn conference the United Nations organized for establishing a new government in Afghanistan.

The Iraqi provisional government then could create a constitution and hold elections the following year, Phillips said.

"The moment you have national elections," he said, "you can claim there's been a legitimate transfer of power."

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