The Hindu Business Line : Saving Iraq

THE Americans are realising that no illegitimate conqueror, however powerful, can keep a spirited people under heel. Almost from the moment of their unlawful occupation of Iraq, they have been grappling with growing pockets of resistance which, over the period of a year, have coalesced into an armed rebellion spreading like prairie fire. The US military command, mired in a strange country, ignorant of the language, unable to tell friend from foe, denounced as oppressors, and demoralised by the tide of world opinion unrelentingly running against its continued presence, is fast losing its grip.

In order to assert its supremacy in the face of setbacks, it is being forced to resort to excesses such as attacks on mosques, bombing of civilian areas and violating rules of warfare. The frequent declarations of unshakeable resolve emanating from leading members of the Bush Administration, from the President down, are nothing more than nervous whistling in the dark.

The US can extricate itself from the chamber of horrors that Iraq has become only by admitting to itself that it has made an egregious blunder by invading it in the first place, flouting world opinion and without adequate cause.

There is also no point in harping on the June 30 deadline to hand over power to Iraqis if by then large parts of the country are reduced to a shambles, beyond the capacity of the Iraqis or even of an international consortium to put together. In that kind of a situation, even maintaining the deadline may become problematic. Meanwhile, the crisis of the immediate present is crying out for a solution. What has become imperative is to stop the country from sliding into chaos between now and June 30.

It is clear that the US is beyond its depths and in desperate straits.

Further, the whole population has begun to bristle at the very sight of them, and anything that they do is adding fuel to the fire.

The only hope of cooling down tempers and create conditions for a smooth transition is for a group of countries — say, France, Germany, Russia, India and Malaysia — enjoying credibility in the eyes of the Iraqis to form themselves under the leadership of the UN into an International Agency for Restoration of Peace and Reconciliation and take over the reins from the Americans.

It is time the UN Secretary-General seizes the initiative and lets the UN take charge instead of being content with playing the mute bystander. What is at stake is the right to life and dignity and indeed the very survival of the Iraqi people as a whole.

B. S. Raghavan