An Arab plan to end the war in Iraq

This sounds much like the plan that Colin Powell had drafted before being forced to go to the UN and lie in an attempt to legitimize our invasion of a sovereign nation. It has even less chance of being acted upon now.

Substantive Plan for Ending the Iraqi War
Jonathan Power, Arab News


Everybody out! Surely that is the only answer for Iraq. The trouble is — among all the other troubles — that no one has a plan. At best we have vague ideas — a pull back but leaving troops in their bases to do training work, a conference with the interested neighbors, or a break-up of Iraq into its constituent ethnic and religious parts. Where do we go from there, remains unanswered.

Rather bravely, if belatedly too, Sweden’s Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) has come out with a plan. (Although I am an unpaid associate of the foundation I have had no say in the plan’s drafting.)

It begins with a telling observation: “As long as the overall perspective is concentrated on how bad and wrong everything is, it is a safe hypothesis that there will be either no withdrawal or an even worse situation after such a withdrawal... Withdrawal is not likely until many more citizens around the world can see alternatives to occupation. Elise Boulding has eloquently stated that what people can’t envision, they are not likely to fight for.”

A “withdraw-and-forget” policy à la Vietnam would be the worst and most dangerous policy.

TFF suggests that we have to establish an international peacebuilding mission under UN leadership. This will not be “just another UN mission”. It will be of a fundamentally new type. Its main ingredients must be — a clear and comprehensive mandate giving the UN control with funding secured for a least five years at the onset; partnership with influential organizations, such as the Arab League, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as nongovernmental organizations; 100,000 UN troops (I would double this figure) of which 15 percent will be acting under a robust command, as laid out in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, 25 percent will be police and 60 percent will be civilian-humanitarian workers. No military personnel will be recruited from countries that have been occupiers and a majority will come from non-Western countries. Countries with sophisticated armies like India, France, Japan and Brazil must play a leading role.

This will be the largest ever UN mission. “It must be big enough so that it can do the job, but not so big that the Iraqis will feel that it is a new occupation.” The mission must strike a balance between the traditional “heavyweight” activities such as the military, law, institution building and physical re-building and “lightweight” people-orientated elements, such as working directly on reconciliation, forgiveness, human healing, neighborhood-regeneration, schooling, health and psychiatric care. The UN would work through two new Iraqi bodies appointed by the Iraqi government — a reconstruction and development council run by Iraqi professionals and technocrats with support from the UN and a national security council that will oversee defense, interior affairs, intelligence and national security.

Added to this there should be a South Africa-style commission so that those accused of wrongdoing can find a way to clean the sheet by owning up publicly to their crimes.

Remembering what the supposed reason was for the American-British invasion — to root out weapons of mass destruction — the UN should resolve to insist that the Middle East become a zone free of such weapons. The US and Britain should also make Iraq a hefty endowment to compensate for all the destruction they have brought about, just as Iraq was compelled to aid Kuwait after the first Gulf War. This would amount to at least $250 billion. The whole effort will demand a high-class team of high-powered international diplomats who have earned a reputation for impartiality and the ability to empathize with both sides in a conflict. Fortunately over the years the UN has built up a cadre of these — Kofi Annan could be one.

Here is a plan that will require not just American and British consent but active support from all over. It needs the full weight of the European Union and real credible backing from Moscow and Beijing. It also demands that the rest of the world pull their weight too — with troops, professionals and finance. Nearly every country in the world has a vested interest in making sure that Iraq does not go from bad to worse, that Iraq doesn’t become a major recruiting ground and front for Al-Qaeda.

For those who have doubts they should re-read the UN Charter. It was written with situations like this clearly in mind — when such is the hell that only the combined will and willingness of mankind can rectify the destruction being done.