The New UN Resolution: Still Hard Times for the Empire

Mark Solomon

The war continues to go badly. Violence is surging with
mounting civilian and military casualties as occupying
forces respond with more lethal force to the increased
frequency and growing sophistication of car bombings,
mortar attacks and roadside bombs. US forces are
stretched thin and the tours of duty of regular army
and reservists are being routinely extended - fanning
the anger of military families. With thousands of Iraqi
dead and injured and with US losses edging inexorably
towards one thousand, the magnitude of the neo-
conservative misadventure sinks more and more deeply
into the consciousness of the US electorate and drives
the continuing decline in Bush’s poll numbers.

The rush to install Iraqi "sovereignty" by June 30
reflects the White House’s electoral fears. But that
process has not gone smoothly and every effort to
fashion the illusion of Iraqi self-determination
constricts the maneuvering space for the administration
and confronts it with new difficulties.

Coupled with a patently undemocratic and near-
dictatorial process of fashioning a "sovereign"
government, Washington and London have been obliged to
turn to the UN for a new resolution authorizing a
"multilateral force" still composed overwhelmingly of
US troops under US command as well as endorsing the new
interim government. The Security Council resolution has
just unanimously approved a fourth draft - apparently
wishing to force Washington into incremental
compromises while declining to provide military forces
to relieve Bush’s self imposed burdens. Yet, the
demands of France and other Council members for an
unambiguous statement that the interim government will
have authority over its armed forces fully independent
of foreign troops, that Iraqi forces can refuse to take
part in US-led operations, and that the new government
could veto "sensitive offensive operations" by US
commanders - are absent from the resolution. (The
resolution merely says that Iraqi armed forces
"operating under the authority of the interim
government" will "progressively play a greater role and
ultimately assume full responsibility for ... security
and stability in Iraq.")

Rather, Washington concocted an exchange of letters
between appointed prime minister Iyad Allawi, the CIA’s
favorite coup plotter, and Colin Powell as annexes to
the resolution. Using identical language, both letters
pledged cooperation "to reach agreement on the full
range of fundamental security and policy issues,
including policy on sensitive offensive operations."
The letters say that the "Iraqi government has
authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the
multinational force to engage in operations with it,"
but there is still no Iraqi veto. Last minute changes
in the resolution stress a "security partnership"
between what is now called a "multinational force" and
the "sovereign government of Iraq" based on
"coordination and consultation." In reality, any notion
that there will be a "partnership" of equals between a
creaky formation without a popular mandate and a huge
military force under US command strains credibility. At
the same time, Colin Powell has made it clear that the
US military, despite the Abu Ghraib scandal, would
still have the right to intern suspects without
consulting with Iraqis.

Under pressure, Washington and London agreed that the
transitional government has the right to order the
withdrawal of occupying military forces. However, that
consent is linked within the resolution itself to
acknowledgment that Allawi and his government had no
intention of asking US and other foreign forces to
leave. It is apparent that Washington would never have
agreed to this provision were it not for a previous
arrangement with Allawi. Bush and Blair also had to
agree that the mandate for foreign forces will expire
with the formation of "a constitutionally elected
government by 31 December 2005." Such a constitution
and electoral process would be established under
occupation by at least 160,000 foreign troops. Most
likely, Washington calculates that a government formed
under occupation will again "request" that foreign
troop remain.

The resolution also mandates that the transitional
government shall take charge of oil and gas revenues.
But the Security Council also mandated that the US-
controlled International Advisory and Monitoring Board
"shall continue its activities in monitoring the
Development Fund for Iraq" (the depository for such
revenues) which must "satisfy outstanding obligations"
against it. The resolution also is silent on
privatization of Iraqi resources, on the open season
for lucrative foreign reconstruction contracts and on
limits place by Bremer on Iraqi powers to tax.

The media is already heralding the passage of the new
Security Council resolution as a "diplomatic triumph"
for Bush and company. Unquestionably, the resolution
puts a UN imprimatur on a continuing occupation. With
the prospect of little change on the ground - with more
violence and death - it is understandable that many,
including many on the left, will see the new resolution
and the creation of a "sovereign" interim government as
a sham.

That is perhaps a narrow and potentially
counterproductive view. Despite the Security Council’s
unwillingness to take a firm stand against the war and
occupation, the resolution is far from a victory for
Bush. In critical ways, it opens space for a
constellation of Iraqi forces to build political
processes far beyond what Bush and his neo-cons
intended, seriously complicating the latter’s political
and strategic objectives. However concocted, Washington
was forced to accept a time frame for ending the
occupation; it had to agree to the interim government’s
right to demand withdrawal of foreign forces; it had to
accede to an expanded UN role in relief and
reconstruction, in development of political
institutions and processes, and in advancing human
rights.

No doubt, Washington will seek to minimize and
undermine these requirements. But such provisions
create less maneuvering space and greater complexity
for the fulfillment of Bush’s aims. In an interview
with Paris Match, Bush admitted that some fighters in
Iraq are not terrorists: "The suicide bombers are, but
other fighters aren’t. They can’t stand being occupied.
That’s why we are giving them back their sovereignty."
Such remarks for a French audience were surely made
with mind boggling mendacity. But every statement of
this type from Bush and his associates strengthen the
mobilization political forces inside Iraq and in the
global arena to end the occupation.

Most important, conditions are maturing inside Iraq for
the broadening of the struggle against occupation from
a few thousand armed fighters to mass political
movements. In the longer run, these emerging
circumstances will prove to be decisive, both in terms
of pressuring the appointed interim government to
demand that foreign troops depart and in strengthening
the global movement against empire. The potential for
creating ample political space for struggle influences
the tactics of communist, left and progressive groups
within Iraq which have consistently sought many-sided
ways to liberate their country — from seizing upon the
contradictions confronting the occupiers to building
the broadest and most inclusive opposition to foreign
forces on their soil.

In the coming days and weeks, the killing of soldiers
and civilians will go on. Most likely, the landscape of
occupation and destruction after June 30 will not
appear to be very different from before the
installation of a "sovereign" government on that day.
At the same time, the spurious "commitment" of Bush and
company threatens to impale them by their own schemes -
and gives the goal of withdrawal of foreign troops from
Iraq greater force and legitimacy.

A final thought: The Pentagon and the White House have
in recent days sought to let the Abu Ghraib scandal of
prisoner torture sink under the waves so as to sustain
their principal objective: continuing the futile war
and occupation. They have tried to reduce Abu Ghraib’s
moral rot to "a few bad apples" of lower rank who have
been singled out for punishment. But that horrific
torture goes to the heart of the oppressive character
of an occupation which inevitably dehumanizes the
victor and savages the humanity of the victim. That
practice is rooted not in the nation’s purported values
but in an exploitative social and economic system which
has nurtured unspeakable brutality against the poor
inside its prisons and outside, has engendered lethal
racism, has often trampled on its own constitutional
protections, and has engaged in colonial conquest which
inevitably led to atrocities against innocent
populations. Such a history needs to be the subject of
an ongoing dialog between progressives and the larger
society in the interest of affecting a transforming
change to a more just country and world — while the
most immediate need is met to exert irresistible
pressure to end an occupation which created the stain
of Abu Ghraib.