Iraq Creates Quandary for Kerry

Escalating violence in Iraq provides John F. Kerry a new opportunity to press his central foreign policy critique of President Bush, but also forces the Democratic challenger to move cautiously in making his case.

Kerry has often been accused of shifting positions and splitting hairs on the war. But on one point the senator has never wavered: that the key to long-term stability in Iraq -- and more financial and military support from other nations -- is to transfer authority for designing a new government from the United States to the United Nations.

Although many media outlets have reported that Kerry hasn’t specified an alternative to Bush’s plan in Iraq, he detailed his position in a speech in September and reiterated it this week.

“They need to go to the world and say we’re not going to have an American authority that is creating this new government,” Kerry said Wednesday. “We’re going to have an international authority that will help develop the new government.”

That proposal could offer the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee one of the most concrete ways to dramatize his broader charge that Bush has made it tough for the U.S. to achieve its goals in Iraq and elsewhere with unilateral actions that have alienated traditional allies.

Yet Kerry aides remain uncertain how much to stress that argument when American soldiers are dying in street battles across Iraq.

“You don’t want in fact, or to appear, to be seizing on a very tragic circumstance for political gain,” said one senior advisor.

And the Massachusetts senator faces questions about whether his alternative has been overrun by events -- whether it is still realistic to expect the U.N. to accept political responsibility for Iraq, or other nations to contribute more military help, when conditions are so chaotic.

In an interview on the Don Imus radio program Friday, Kerry acknowledged that the situation in Iraq had become so difficult that even his approach “maybe ... doesn’t work.”

Says Ivo Daalder, a National Security Council aide under President Clinton: “Is the U.N. more capable of running Iraq than we are? If we turn this over to NATO, are we going to get a significantly larger number of troops? In both cases, the answer is no.”

Still, other analysts argue that while Kerry’s approach would not by itself stem rising instability in Iraq, it might offer a more promising path than the administration’s determination to retain control of the central decisions in establishing a new Iraqi government.

“It’s not a perfect solution, it’s not a silver bullet, but I do think it helps to improve on some of the shortcomings of the current approach,” said Amy Hawthorne, an expert on Middle Eastern governance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Kerry’s first challenge may lie in making more people aware that he has an alternative on Iraq at all.

Because his plan centers on a long-term change in strategy -- rather than a dramatic and immediate shift in tactics, such as a major increase or decrease in troops -- many reporters have suggested he does not differ from Bush.

And Republicans are accusing him of dodging the issue.

“He doesn’t know what he wants to say about Iraq,” said one GOP strategist close to the White House. “He is not sure how this is going to unfold, so he wants to keep his options open.”

Facing such criticisms, aides say, Kerry must balance his desire to explain what he would do differently against his reluctance to appear as though he is not supporting the troops or the nation’s interest abroad.

While Kerry has privately expressed frustration that so few people appear aware of his alternative approach, the fear of seeming to capitalize on tragedy has led his campaign to hold off on a full-scale speech reiterating his position, insiders say.

That consideration also helps explain why Kerry has coupled any criticism of Bush over the past week with declarations of his support for the soldiers in the field.

But the images of American troops under fire also seem to have had a powerful personal effect on Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who was wounded in action.

Waiting in a holding room before a town hall event in Milwaukee on Thursday, Kerry saw televised images of wounded soldiers crawling from a U.S. tank hit by a rocket.

Kerry was obviously haunted by the images: He spoke about them not only at that event, but also on Friday in Chicago.

In Milwaukee, a few moments after watching the tank, he spoke about the son of a Vietnam veteran -- a private from Hobart, Wis. -- who was killed in Iraq on Tuesday.

“He has made the ultimate sacrifice for his country along with 15 soldiers in Wisconsin alone,” said Kerry, visibly moved. “That is the price of serving your country, and we honor it, every single one of us here today.”

Two other factors complicate the challenge for the candidate in clarifying his differences with Bush over Iraq. For one thing, aides note, he does not have access to all the information available to the president, either on the battlefield situation or on the political negotiations to establish a new government.

And they argue that it is inappropriate for Kerry to offer advice on what immediate steps to take when he did not agree with many of the administration decisions that brought the situation in Iraq to this point.

“The biggest problem when you are a candidate talking about a real-time event is that, in a game where you didn’t choose the team, you didn’t choose the plays, you didn’t choose the strategy -- you are being brought in the bottom of the ninth, and being asked what you would do differently,” said one Democratic foreign policy veteran familiar with thinking inside the Kerry camp.

Given these limitations, Kerry has decided to avoid critiquing the day-to-day tactics that Bush and the military are using to confront the uprising.

“We are not going to make recommendations on the tactics that our military commanders ought to use in the field, and we are not in position to say how many more troops are needed with any precision that is useful,” says Rand Beers, the campaign’s foreign policy coordinator.

Instead, Beers says, Kerry will emphasize the “basic principles” he would apply to rebuilding Iraq.

Kerry began raising those ideas as early as last summer, and explained them in depth in a speech last fall in Washington. Since then, he has repeatedly returned to the central idea of international collaboration in speeches and interviews.

In September, Kerry said Bush should dissolve the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority now running Iraq and obtain “a new Security Council resolution” transferring authority for developing the new Iraqi government and constitution to the United Nations.

Such a shift, Kerry argued, would “enhance the credibility and legitimacy of the effort and encourage other nations to provide much-needed funding and technical assistance.” By sharing political power in Iraq, he said, the U.S. would also be in a stronger position to attract more international troops.

Over the past few months, Bush has already opened the door to greater U.N. involvement in Iraq.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has enlisted U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to negotiate with Iraqi leaders over forming the interim government Bush wants to establish by June 30.

But the U.S. is retaining final authority over the transfer of sovereignty and is expected to retain the dominant behind-the-scenes voice once the new interim government is established.

Beers says Kerry believes that interim government will have a much better chance of success if the U.N., rather than the U.S., assumes control over the path toward a permanent government, elections and a constitution.

“In the eyes of the world, the U.N. would be seen as a more legitimate entity to manage this process,” Beers says. “That may be only a perception, but perception matters in this case.”

But some senior Bush administration officials, as well as outside analysts, question whether the U.N. would accept control of such a tumultuous situation.

Others question whether an Iraqi government shaped by the U.N. would have any more credibility among Iraqis than one empowered by the U.S. The U.N. has been controversial there because of its role in enforcing the economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

An extensive poll of Iraqis conducted in February by ABC News and television networks from three other countries found that just 40% of 2,737 Iraqis surveyed said they had confidence in the U.N., while 28% expressed such feelings about the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Skeptics of the Kerry approach also say that even if the U.S. were to cede political control, it would not likely produce significant troop commitments from other nations, especially with the situation on the ground so volatile.

“The key thing is there isn’t that much more military capacity to be gotten,” said Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank. “And in return he would be adding a political element inside Iraq that would be leading to less cohesion precisely at the time you need more.”

Kerry advisors acknowledge that other nations are unlikely to send large numbers of troops to Iraq in the near-term under any circumstances.

But they believe that other nations would share steadily more of the military and financial burden over time if the U.S. agrees to share more authority.

“We can still do this for a simple, basic reason,” says Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a Kerry confidante on foreign policy. “Which is that the Brits, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese cannot afford to have chaos in Iraq and a civil war four months from now.... We just have to give them a chance to act in their self-interest and not make it impossible.”

Times staff writer Maria L. La Ganga contributed to this report.