U.N. Envoy May Provide the Key to a Transfer of Power in Iraq

Struggling to figure out what to do next in Iraq, more and more heads are turning to the United Nations.

President Bush said Tuesday night that he was counting on U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to figure out “the nature of the entity we’ll be handing sovereignty over” to on June 30. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, who is expected to be the Democratic nominee for president, said Monday that a U.N. high commissioner should replace the top U.S. official in July. Members of Congress are demanding that the U.S. bring in more international help through a new resolution in the Security Council.

But U.N. officials and diplomats say those expectations are not only inflated, but they are also dangerous. Brahimi, who arrived in Iraq 10 days ago to talk with its factions about the form of the future government, said before going that he didn’t have the answer -- only the Iraqis did. His job was simply to help them lay it out.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said the U.N. doesn’t want to replace the U.S.-led occupation. On Tuesday, he added that given the security situation, there were no plans to go back into Iraq in the near future.

“For the foreseeable future, insecurity is going to be a major constraint for us, and so I cannot say right now that I’m going to be sending in a large U.N. team,” Annan told reporters.

The Security Council is expecting to adopt a resolution in June recognizing the new interim government -- whatever its form -- clarifying the U.N.’s role and authorizing a multinational force under U.S. command to continue to provide security. But at this point, diplomats expect the resolution to be largely a formality. For it to pull in additional international help, the U.S. must make a serious effort to give the U.N. a clear and autonomous role, and to ensure that a multinational force is seen as a stabilizer, not an occupying presence.

Gunter Pleuger, German ambassador to the U.N., said his country had no plans to increase its participation in Iraq soon, with or without a new resolution. Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said many countries would wait to see how the transition fared before committing to help.

“People have to feel that it is not just a transfer of sovereignty, but a real transfer of power. If that’s what people perceive, they will feel more encouraged to contribute troops, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction,” Baali said.

Even a U.S. proposal aimed at attracting contributions of troops to protect U.N. aid workers is not gaining traction.

“I don’t think this is the time to get involved,” Pakistan’s ambassador, Munir Akram, said of that proposal.

So for the moment, all eyes rest on Brahimi, Annan’s trusted envoy who is due back from Iraq this week. A former Algerian foreign minister who has spent four decades engaged in peacemaking in hot spots from Lebanon to Afghanistan, Brahimi has become a U.N. legend.

He got the political process started in Afghanistan from a similarly fractious beginning and has special credibility in the Arab world because of his origins. During his last trip to Iraq in February, he met with Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. He is unlikely to meet with either on this trip.

Although the volatile security situation in Iraq has limited Brahimi’s ability to canvass leaders, Annan said it hadn’t hampered him completely.

The political landscape has changed dramatically since Brahimi’s first foray into the country. The U.S. standoff with Sadr has entrenched positions and brought Sadr into the negotiating process, adding another difficult dimension, diplomats say.

“Brahimi will give us a very important answer,” Pleuger said. “If he says, ‘I can do it,’ we might have a chance. If he says, ‘I can’t do it,’ then nobody can.”

Brahimi has said the Iraqis must define their transitional government and determine who should serve in it. He says his mission is to help the opposing parties find a consensus, and once the transitional government is established, to help set up elections for a permanent government by January.

He will discuss his consultations today in a Baghdad news conference, but he is not expected to announce a conclusion until he returns to New York to speak with Annan.

But with less than three months until the hand-over of sovereignty, the options for forging a new interim government are limited, analysts and diplomats agree. They seem to have narrowed down to two: expanding the unelected Iraqi Governing Council or creating a larger assembly, an Iraqi version of the loya jirga constitutional assembly that was held in Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell promoted the first plan last week in testimony before the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“The model that is getting the most attention right now, and seems the most practical one, in terms of the time available to us, would be some form of expanded Governing Council,” Powell said. “But that is just the sort of lead horse at the moment. No decisions have been made.”

“The difficulty is, the simplest and easiest has the lowest legitimacy and credibility,” said former U.S. ambassador James Dobbins, referring to expanding the Governing Council. The more complex choice, creating a broad constitutional assembly, “has the highest legitimacy but is the most difficult to achieve.”

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Farley reported from the United Nations and Efron from Washington.