Getting Ready For “Next Time” In Post-War Iraq

by John Hawkins | April 7, 2003 5:10 pm

Getting Ready For “Next Time” In Post-War Iraq: The fighting isn’t over yet, but the battle over post-war Iraq has begun. France, Germany, Russia, China, Kofi Annan & supposedly even Colin Powell & Tony Blair are all pushing to let the UN run Iraq after the war is over.

Fortunately, it looks like that is not going to happen. Most of the administration has been talking about giving the UN a “role” in post-war Iraq, but not letting them run the show. Condi Rice[1] said that very explicitly yesterday and I find that she tends to be a very reliable guide to where Bush is on foreign policy issues.

Now you may wonder; would there not be advantages to letting the UN handle things in Iraq? Without question there would be. We wouldn’t need to tie up as many US troops, it would help smooth over some ruffled feathers around the world, it would allow us to get more financial contributions to pay for the war, it would confer more “legitimacy” on our actions in the eyes of some nations, etc, etc.

So why aren’t we going to let the UN take over? Simply put, because there is no such thing as a “war to end all wars” or a “peace for our time”. To the contrary, there is always a “next time”. In the war on terrorism, that “next time” may be sooner rather than later. So that being the case, the worst thing we could do would be to go back into the UN snakepit and let Kofi Annan, France, Germany, Syria, & Russia dictate the terms of how Iraq is going to be run to us after they bent over backwards to try to undercut the war.

Simply put, those nations & the UN backed the wrong horse and now we’re going to have to make them pay a price for it to insure that they don’t do it again “next time.” Coalition blood & treasure is being spent to liberate Iraq. So since we’re paying for the fiddler, we’re going to call the tunes. If that music isn’t to the taste of the rest of the world, then “next time” we start putting together a coalition, they had better get on board.