United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan threw a lifeline to President Bush last week, and the president should seize it quickly before it's too late. Because in order to avoid a Vietnam-type quagmire in Iraq, we need extensive international help in the reconstruction of that war-torn country, and the sooner the better.
In a 23-page report to the UN Security Council last Monday, Annan urged the U.S. to quickly restore control of Iraq to its people and warned that "democracy can't be imposed from the outside." Annan also endorsed the new Iraqi Governing Council created by the U.S.-led occupation authority, calling it "a broadly representative partner with whom the UN and the international community at large can engage."
"Annan threw Bush a lifeline last Monday by issuing a report that recommends the Security Council recognize the Governing Council," the respected Christian Science Monitor opined in an editorial on Tuesday. "A number of countries won't send troops until the UN gives its approval. This has forced Bush to work closely with Mr. Annan to make sure this interim authority has enough respect among Iraqis to gain legitimacy abroad." That's an accurate account of the dilemma the U.S. faces in Iraq nearly three months after President Bush's premature victory celebration on the deck of an aircraft carrier in May. Unfortunately, however, he's discovering that real victory is much more complicated than a spectacular photo-op.
It is now clear that the U.S. "misunderestimated" (Bush's word) the magnitude of the post-war task in Iraq. Our relatively easy, three-week military triumph led Bush Administration officials to believe that reconstruction and the establishment of representative democracy would be equally uncomplicated. But they were wrong! Now that we've won the war, we must make a long-term commitment to Iraq that will require tens of thousands of American troops to remain there for several years. We need international help to bear that heavy burden, especially when our military resources are already stretched thin and when we face possible nuclear threats from two other members of the "Axis of Evil" -- Iran and North Korea.
In my view, one of our main problems in Iraq is that the U.S. military is still in charge. While it is obviously necessary for the Pentagon to combat the daily guerrilla attacks that are killing American servicemen, the military should defer to well-trained civilians and diplomats when it comes to political and civil affairs.
President Bush made a wise decision when he named an experienced career diplomat, Amb. Paul Bremer, as the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, but then he undercut Bremer by requiring him to report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld instead of Secretary of State Colin Powell. While the Pentagon is an effective war-fighting machine, it's much less effective when it comes to politics and cross-cultural communication.
This civilian-military imbalance was on display at the White House last Wednesday when President Bush congratulated our troops for killing Saddam Hussein's murderous sons, Uday and Qusay. Bush was flanked by Ambassador Bremer, Secretary Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Meyers. But the ranking Bush Administration civilians, Secretary Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, were absent even though the announcement had heavy political implications. Soldiers aren't very good at politics, as they've demonstrated many times in the past. For starters, think Vietnam.
In order to achieve our long-term political goals, it's essential that the reconstruction of Iraq be seen as an international effort rather than a U.S. military occupation. So it's time to put a civilian face on the Iraq project. Ambassador Bremer and his civilian spokesmen should be "out front" with the media, rather than the constant parade of admirals, generals and colonels that we're seeing on television. For example, when American TV networks discuss Iraq, they frequently offer commentary by retired military officers. "We kicked their butts" may be a satisfyingly macho sound bite, but it falls short of serious analysis of an extremely complex foreign affairs challenge. Furthermore, such statements offend largely Muslim audiences in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and around the world.
This political challenge brings me to the issue of public diplomacy -- telling America's story to the world -- which was my Foreign Service specialty. We have the Clinton Administration and former Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., to thank for sending U.S. Information Agency public diplomacy specialists to the basement of the sprawling State Department, where they disappeared from view. And now that we urgently need these language-capable specialists in order to convince Muslim audiences that our fight is against brutal dictators and not against Islam, they're sitting on the sidelines while military officers talk about psyops and collateral damage. Go figure!
New York Times foreign affairs analyst Tom Friedman summarized the Bush Administration's Iraq challenge rather well last week when he wrote the following: "If we find WMD (weapons of mass destruction) but lose Iraq, Mr. Bush will not only go down as a failed president, but one who made the world even more dangerous for Americans. If we find no WMD but build a better Iraq -- one that proves that a multiethnic, multireligious Arab state can rule itself in a decent way -- Mr. Bush will survive his hyping of the WMD issue, and the world will be a more hospitable and safer place for all Americans."
In order to "build a better Iraq," however, Bush must internationalize the reconstruction of Iraq and turn political and civil affairs over to experienced, trained civilians and diplomats in short order.
Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.