TIMING IRAQ'S TRANSITION

 Editorial de  “The Washington Post” del 16.09.2003

Opponents of the U.S. mission in Iraq like to portray themselves as striving to "end the occupation." It's a popular stand; the only problem is that no one opposes it -- neither President Bush nor anyone else in his administration. So let's be clear: The current Iraq debate is not about ending the postwar regime -- which everyone favors -- but about what will replace it, and how. Many Arab governments find the U.S. plan for fostering an Iraqi democracy unsettling, either because they object to the prospect of a government led by Iraq's majority Shiites or because the free election of an Arab ruler might raise questions about their own autocracies. Some Democrats argue that domestic needs should come before a costly reconstruction program. France hopes to score points with Muslim opinion at U.S. expense and to prove that the president's vision of a Middle Eastern transformation beginning in Iraq is false. All these parties can advance their aims by pressuring the administration to transfer full governing power within weeks to an appointed Iraqi council or the United Nations. It's a demand Mr. Bush is right to resist.

A quicker political transition would not shorten the deployments of U.S. troops in Iraq, as those depend on the course of the war against remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and the foreign militants who may have joined them. It could, however, destroy the prospects for a transition to democracy. It would require that a new constitution, political parties and an electoral process all be created under an unelected, inexperienced and fractious group of Iraqis who would also be charged with overseeing the economy and government services. The United Nations is not prepared to take on the burden of ruling Iraq, U.N. officials have made clear. So the beneficiaries would likely be the small group of former Iraqi exiles who all along have sought to seize power. The Bush administration once leaned toward backing them but wisely abandoned the option several weeks after the war. Though they are mostly pro-Western, most of the exiles do not have a strong following in Iraq, nor have they been able to work effectively with one another.

The transition plan envisioned by the administration is hardly dilatory. The American occupation chief, L. Paul Bremer, speaks of a seven-step process that includes the drafting of a constitution and its ratification by popular vote, followed by the staging of elections -- which he says could be completed by next summer or fall. That is an ambitious and risky timetable, which, if realized, would amount to one of the quickest transitions from dictatorship to democracy ever accomplished. But if combined with a well-funded program of reconstruction, it could make possible the selection of a new government supported by most Iraqis, thus creating the stability needed for a U.S. withdrawal.

To insist that Iraq's transition be given adequate time does not mean that the United States must continue to dominate it. On the contrary, precisely because more time is needed, the Bush administration ought to be more flexible in negotiating the mandate that will be given the United Nations in a new Security Council resolution. Though U.N. technocrats cannot run the country, formal U.N. supervision of a political transition would raise the chances that it would be accepted by Iraqis and other governments. By making the transition a multilateral project, the administration can build a coalition to support a genuine transformation of Iraq -- and outmaneuver those who, in the name of ending the occupation, would abort that mission.