Messy situations cannot be set right through shady deals, writes Mohamed Sid-Ahmed The United States is still suffering from the after-effects of the devastating blow it was dealt on 11 September 2001. Although it remains the undisputed leader of the unipolar world order, although its military and economic power is still far grater than that of all other states combined, the Bush administration cannot claim that it has made America safe or that it has restored the status and prestige of the American system. America's loss of face by reason of the intelligence and judgment failures leading up to 9/11 has been compounded by the credibility crisis now besetting the Bush administration. President Bush justified his decision to try out his new-fangled doctrine of preemptive war on Iraq by claiming that the Iraqi regime was aiding and abetting international terrorism, that it had links with Al-Qaeda, and that it was in possession of a secret cache of weapons of mass destruction. Without the approval of the Security Council and despite the fact that no trace of WMDs was found by the UN weapons inspectors, Washington launched a full-scale invasion against a sovereign member state of the United Nations. A number of countries, including Britain, Spain, Italy and others followed the American line. As everyone knows, all efforts to find WMDs in Iraq or to establish a link between the Iraqi regime and Al-Qaeda failed, and it is now generally accepted that the US launched the war under false pretences. Despite the absence of any concrete evidence to substantiate their allegation, some Western capitals continue to insist that Saddam Hussein did possess WMDs. The only explanation for their certainty is that they themselves furnished him with such weapons during the Iraq-Iran war. At the same time, however, they can hardly admit their complicity. They are thus caught on the horns of a dilemma: on the one hand, they need to prove the truth of their allegation, on the other, they cannot openly admit that they provided the former Iraqi leader with internationally banned weapons. After their efforts to establish a link between the Saddam regime and Al- Qaeda failed, Washington and London resorted to moral arguments, asserting that they had done well to rid the Iraqi people of their tyrannical ruler. The clear assumption here is that the end justifies the means, and that wars can be waged against despots even in the absence of proof that they violated international law. True, we are now witnessing conciliatory moves between parties that adopted contradictory stands on the war in Iraq. But this raises an important question: is it possible to erase the consequences of the war and reach an equitable solution to the Iraqi problem by means of compromises which do not necessarily respect international legitimacy? The Iraq war had an extremely divisive effect on the world system. It split the Security Council into two opposing camps, one led by Bush, who called for launching an immediate war on Iraq without waiting for a new council resolution (on the ground that Iraq did possess WMDs, even if they had not been discovered), and another, led by France, Germany, and Russia, who called for restraint and for more time to be given to the UN inspectors. But the United States turned its back on the Security Council and decided to go to war on its own without delay, arguing that the weapons were definitely hidden somewhere in Iraq and would eventually be found. Much water has passed under the bridge since then, and all the permanent members of the Security Council are now ready to let bygones be bygones. But how best to go about putting the past behind them? Should America relinquish its unilateral grip on Iraq and return to the United Nations and the Security Council? Or does the way out require some other form of compromise, taking advantage of the Security Council, but with the real authority remaining in the hands of the US administration? Both camps were keen to reach some form of reconciliation. France, Germany, Russia and China had no interest in keeping their differences with the US and Britain alive, while Bush for his part was in no position to sustain his hostility to the majority of Security Council members indefinitely, especially in an election year. Driven by considerations of expediency, not principle, they have reached a compromise that reflects this reality. The situation today is that Bush continues to pursue a policy which ensures that key decisions remain in the hands of the US while apparently handing over authority to the United Nations. On 28 June, sovereignty was supposedly transferred to the Iraqis. But the transfer of sovereignty was not accompanied by the withdrawal of coalition forces. Indeed, reinforcements were sent in after that date. The coalition forces remain under the command of an American general, and are in no way subject to the authority of the interim Iraqi government. How can there be talk of sovereignty and independence while the country remains under foreign military occupation? The argument used to justify this strange state of affairs is that interim Iraqi government has agreed to the continued presence of US troops in Iraq. But the members of that government were all appointed; they are not a legitimate representative body freely elected by the Iraqi people. In any case, Iraq was not ready on 28 June to hold authentically free elections. Actually, Iraq has never experienced genuinely free elections, neither before its 1958 Revolution nor after. No correct lists of voters exist, nor are they expected to be ready for months to come. So there was no choice but to impose a period of limited sovereignty, to announce that Iraq has restored its sovereignty and independence in contradiction with the facts, which are that foreign troops will remain stationed in Iraq for an indefinite period of time. But even if it was difficult to take Iraq from no sovereignty to full sovereignty overnight, surely the transition period could have been better planned. For example, instead of handing power over to an interim government that lacks legitimacy because it was created by the occupying power, why did the United States not hand it over to the United Nations? All the blame for the many political blunders committed by the Bush administration has been laid squarely on the shoulders of the intelligence community. This raises the question of where the responsibility of those charged with gathering intelligence ends and where that of the political decision-maker begins. Are we to believe that decision-making is merely reactive, that it is nothing more than a mechanistic process of action on information received rather than a dynamic process of evaluating that information politically? Should Saddam's disclaimers regarding WMDs have been so summarily dismissed? Should the possibility that he had no connection with Al-Qaeda not have been given serious consideration? Who should be held accountable for mistakes of this sort, the technicians charged with gathering information or the politicians who decide what to do with it? Both the Butler Report in Britain and the 9/11 Commission Report in America blame the security organs for the way the information they provided was used. The technicians, not the politicians, were regarded as the main culprits, while the leaders have been exonerated. War against terrorism is an unconventional war. It is not a war involving regular armies. In most cases, it is war that is not declared. Bush declared emergency measures in a number of American states, exploiting the atmosphere of panic generated by terrorism to strengthen his electoral position against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Bush has every interest in magnifying the terrorist threat to justify the continued presence of US troops in Iraq and adopt emergency measures, not bound by a principled stand, to face the present impasse in the Middle East.
