Bush Returning to U.N. With Altered Iraq Stance

A year ago, President Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on the urgent need to intervene in Iraq -- and pledged that the United States was prepared to act without the world body if other nations balked.

“We cannot stand by and do nothing as dangers gather,” he told the General Assembly opening session. “By heritage and by choice, the United States will make that stand.”

The president returns to New York on Tuesday to once again appeal for major international involvement in Iraq -- this time seeking a resolution that implicitly acknowledges that Washington needs the world. Although Bush could shun the U.N. to get into Iraq, solidifying postwar peace and then getting out of Iraq is proving difficult without the U.N. imprimatur.

“He won’t put it that way, but that’s the reality,” reflected a well-placed U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Washington is hoping that the new resolution will, first and foremost, heal the bitter divisions over Iraq policy and eventually lead allies to provide additional troops and funds for reconstruction -- the prerequisites of an exit strategy.

It’s going to be another challenge in the Iraq saga, senior U.S. officials concede. And for Bush to get help bailing out a troubled policy that is taking an increasing toll in American lives and resources, the administration will effectively have to yield to the international community on other key points, say foreign officials close to the crisis.

First, the United States needs to further define and detail its plans, and then provide a better sense of the timing. Too often, foreign officials say, the process seems to drift, whatever the good intentions.

France, Russia, China and Germany, key Security Council members, all want a greater sense of momentum in Iraq, a prime reason they balked at the original draft of the U.S. resolution circulated last month. Some of America’s closest allies are openly worried about alienation and other consequences of delays in the transition.

“It’s taken time for the coalition leadership to articulate the strategy or the plan. We’re kind of confused about what the overall objective is, [and] if we’re confused, so are the Iraqis,” Jordan’s King Abdullah II said last week in an interview during his visit to Washington. “If Iraqis don’t really know what tomorrow will bring, then how can they buy into it?”

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell began to deal with that issue last week.

His two-day visit to Iraq was designed in part to refocus attention on how Iraqis are assuming control of their own country, from the top governing council and municipal bodies all the way down to parent-teacher associations.

The administration contends that any handover must follow a sequence -- a new constitution, a public referendum on it, then elections -- to ensure that a stable democracy emerges. Each step could take months if done right, U.S. officials say. In contrast, France, which wields a Security Council veto, wants a much speedier return of sovereignty, proposing that political power be turned over to a provisional Iraqi government next month.

The specter of Lebanon also hangs over Iraq, U.S. officials add. For decades, power in Beirut was divided among religious sects based on an informal agreement. When demographics shifted, demands for a change in the distribution of power fueled a 15-year civil war.

A new Iraqi system must be cast in constitutional concrete to prevent cracks among its rival ethnic and religious communities that could lead to the breakup of the country, U.S. officials say.

At the same time, however, Iraqis need more details on the transition to avoid deepening frustration with the U.S.-led coalition 4 1/2 months after Bush pronounced an end to major conflict, top foreign officials say. The uncertainty could undermine the United States’ effort.

“It’s that lack of knowing. They don’t know if Saddam is going to come back. They don’t know what the exit policy is and how soon it will happen,” Abdullah said.

“A timetable is important for Iraqis. Leaving the timing open or Iraqis in the dark makes them nervous. It also makes them feel excluded -- the way they felt during Saddam Hussein’s rule,” said Ghassan Salameh, chief advisor to the U.N. representative in Iraq killed in a bombing last month and now advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

One measure to bridge the gap is accelerating the training of Iraqi security forces so they can assume more responsibility, leaving U.S. forces exposed as targets less often -- another step Powell emphasized during his visit to Iraq.

“We need more boots on the ground but they need to be more Iraqi boots on the ground,” said Abdullah, whose country is training 3,000 Iraqi police.

Crucial to a new resolution, broader assistance and an exit strategy is determining the relationship between the United Nations and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, Salameh said.

“The United Nations is not looking for a larger role or a smaller role, but a more defined role” on political transition and security, both of which are vague, he said. Only the U.N. humanitarian role is clear-cut.

Finally, to win wider support from the international community, the United States may have to acknowledge, by act if not in specific words, that a so-called regime change is only a part of the solution in dealing with either terrorism or tyrants.

“We lost a bit of focus because there was a campaign against a nation, but that’s a small part of the equation. It’s the ideological struggle that we have to get back into high gear on,” Abdullah said.

Added a top envoy from a country involved in the U.N. debate: “That’s what this whole thing is really about -- getting the United States to recognize that you can’t simply remove governments, you have to follow through on creating alternatives for a whole society. It’s much, much bigger and more complicated than getting rid of bad guys.”