Success of war with Iraq comes in reconstruction

For several months now our president has been telling us that, other nations unwilling, our armed forces are prepared to unilaterally invade Iraq in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power. It may very well be true that a coalition will not be needed for successful military action in what would be the second Gulf War in 15 years. By all recent estimates the United States should be able to singlehandedly defeat Iraqi forces. But, this is not enough to excuse the Bush administration's inability to build a coalition, or to justify unilateral intervention.

For it is after the blood has been shed that the United States will need friends with it on the ground in Iraq in order to reconstruct the country properly. Otherwise, the United States runs the risk of being perceived in the region and throughout the world as a "neo-imperialist" power, a scenario which would inevitably engender increased animosity towards the United States and strike a great blow to our nation's already waning diplomatic legitimacy abroad.

The success of the American decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, if it is made, will not be based on the actions of our men in uniform in the heat of battle, but rather on the reconstruction of the Iraqi state after arms have been laid to rest. As Dr. Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has written, "We need to base our peace plans on the reality that we will be judged by their success for years to come, and that any failures can have explosive regional impacts."

It appears though that the Bush administration is so focused on justifying unilateral intervention in Iraq that there is frighteningly little longterm vision for the state-building which will need to occur. With this apparent lack of planning and foresight, and the inability to rally international support, the Bush administration may have in fact doomed the success of intervention in Iraq before the first shots have even been fired.

In his only public statement on the issue to date, President Bush attempted to allay concerns that the United States would become bogged down in a lengthy occupation of Iraq, and attempted to put reconstructive efforts in context. He explained that, "We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before — in the peace that followed a world war." Such a fallacious interpretation of history cannot stand uncorrected. State-building in Iraq will bear few resemblances to the state-building which followed World War II under General MacArthur in Japan or in Europe with the Marshall Plan.

The reconstruction of Europe was not done unilaterally by the United States, but rather in concert with many other nations. As Secretary of State George C. Marshall, in proposing the Marshall Plan to Congress on June 30, 1947, stated, "It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically." The Bush administration could benefit from such insightful and well-balanced analysis.

Reconstructive efforts in postwar Japan were successful in part because Japan was an isolated country with a homogeneous population that shared values and a strong national identity. Iraq has none of these things. As Michael Ignatiff explained in a recent New York Times article, Iraq is in fact, "an imperial fiction, cobbled together at the Versailles Peace Conference by the French and British and held together by force and violence since independence." Thus Iraq, as a diverse state whose borders are based arbitrarily on colonialism, will present the United States with numerous challenges for which there are no historical models, challenges made even more difficult by the prospect of dealing with them alone.

The Bush administration also seems incapable of grasping the fact that a unilateral commitment to state-building in Iraq, if it is to be successful, will have to be of significant duration (many experts say at least 5 years) and at great cost (estimated between $120 and $200 billion). Iraq has no viable political parties, no exile or internal leaders with proven popular legitimacy, and deep ethnic, religious, and tribal/clan divisions. It will therefore take time to build trust among these various groups. Will the United States be willing to patiently facilitate this, as well as deal with the repercussions? Already Afghan President Hamid Karzai, fearing that the US is losing interest in its state-building endeavors there, has embarked on a trip to the United States to ensure continued support. How will our country deal with the burden of two states?

A coalition of nations would not only prevent the United States from overextending itself in attempting to sustain the new Afghani and Iraqi states, but would also provide a more balanced approach to reconstruction. Historically, when the United States has exerted itself overseas, it has been forced to choose in its policies between stability and democracy. The Carter administration and much of America learned with the Islamic Revolution in Iran that one group's stability is another's fodder for revolt. What will the United States do when confronted with such a decision in Iraq?

One thing which is very clear, as sole proprietor of Iraq, the United States will place itself firmly in the crosshairs of analready explosive region. Is the Bush administration aware of the consequences?