The United States is facing a hellish situation in Iraq. And we
need help. The problem is, much of the world ““ watching U.S.
soldiers get killed in attacks seemingly every day and still
reeling over the unilateralism demonstrated at the war’s
onset ““ isn’t eager to lend a hand.
But the Bush administration needs to try harder to
internationalize post-war Iraq. The situation is dire.
The case for war focused on the need to eliminate the threat of
terrorism, yet occupied Iraq has turned into a field for suicide
attacks and guerrilla warfare. Before the war, Iraq was not an
imminent threat to the United States. Now, it is an al Qaeda
staging ground. The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that al Qaeda
terrorists from as far as Sudan, Algeria and Afghanistan are
flooding into Iraq to help Hussein loyalists and oppose U.S.
occupation. As President Bush makes lofty speeches about
establishing democracy in the Middle East, soldiers in Iraq
can’t even work to get Iraqi people clean water and
electricity without wondering whether the next car down the road
has been sent to blow them up. Where there was no security threat,
there now is ““ and it’s showing in the international
response.
The Red Cross announced Saturday it is temporarily abandoning
its offices in Baghdad and Basra in reaction to “an extremely
dangerous and volatile situation,” a spokesman told the
Associated Press. The Red Cross had been making plans to reduce
staffing in the country since its Baghdad office was hit with a
truck bomb two weeks ago, and is now only left with personnel in
less-volatile northern Iraq. The organization maintains it
won’t seek help from coalition forces because doing so would
compromise its status as a neutral aid agency.
The Red Cross announcement comes on the heels of the
U.N.’s decision at the end of October to remove the last of
its staff from Baghdad. The U.N.’s offices were rocked by a
deadly bombing in August, prompting Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
dramatically reduce staff, and a more recent security review pushed
him to clear out of the city completely. Though the U.N. still has
workers in northern Iraq, Baghdad lost an important international
presence in these agencies.
To clean up the mess, the United States is simply going to have
to give countries what they want. If governments around the world
are willing to send troops in exchange for lifted trade barriers,
it might have to play a little give and take. It’s hard for
the world to take the U.S.’s intentions in Iraq seriously
when an $87 billion package to fund troops also included giveaways
to the big corporations charged with rebuilding Iraq. The blatant
cronyism must end if the United States hopes to get other countries
on board to help create a more secure region.
Much of the country’s credibility in the region hinges on
its success in the Israel-Palestine conflict. President
Bush’s “roadmap to peace” has stalled, and is
struggling to even stay viable. Last month, Israel decided to go
ahead with settlements in the West Bank, defying the
roadmap’s goal to freeze construction. Meanwhile, an internal
feud between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his successive
prime ministers has tied up U.S. diplomacy, and the Palestinians
have yet to reign in the militants as mandated by the roadmap.
And no peace will be a lasting peace in the Middle East without
help from the countries surrounding Iraq. The Arab League, a
voluntary group of sovereign states, invited a representative
from Iraq’s Governing Council to its meeting in September,
extending a hand toward recognition of the U.S.-installed body. But
as recently as Saturday, the leader of the Arab League criticized
U.S. involvement in the region, saying the country misunderstands
the situation there and that it harbors a bias for Israel. The
United States needs to emphasize to the League that Iraq’s
stable government is better than its failed one, despite the
differences.
The road ahead is long. Months after Bush declared major combat
over in Iraq, some troops are coming home, but just as many are
going over. The war always garnered a good amount of criticism, but
it is now coming from unusual suspects. Sen. John McCain beat the
drums for war as loudly as anyone did in Congress, but he was
recently quoted in Newsweek, saying the Iraq situation was like the
Vietnam War in that what the administration is telling the public
does not level with what is happening on the ground.
The “bring it on,” unilateral,
don’t-ask-any-questions approach just isn’t working
““ and people here and everywhere else are starting to realize
that. It’s going to be difficult, faced with a shortage of
allies and increasing casualties, but the administration must stay
in the country ““ and recruit international help ““ until
it can bring the stability it promised.