IRAQ - NO EASY EXIT FOR BUSH
In his final effort to dissuade President George W Bush from invading Iraq in January 2003, secretary of state Colin Powell reminded his boss of the "Pottery Barn rule - if you break it, you own it". Bush, of course, was already being swayed by dark warnings of gathering danger from Iraq's (phantom, as it turns out) weapons of mass destruction. And he was in the thrall of "neo conservative" ideologues at the Pentagon, who made giddy promises that the Iraqis would welcome US troops as liberators and would quickly create a pro-US, pro-Israel, open-for-business market economy at the heart of a deeply troubled region.
Powell was right. The occupation has been an unmitigated disaster for Washington. More than 700 US soldiers have been killed and more than 4 500 wounded since Bush declared an end to combat operations in Iraq in May 2003, while the number of Iraqis killed is estimated (the c oalition, to its shame, isn't counting) to run to at least to 10 000.
Insurgent attacks and terror strikes have hobbled reconstruction; Iraqi public opinion is as hostile to the US and Israel as in any other Arab country; and Western analysts fear the country is sliding into civil war.
The occupation authority's own research shows that the majority of Iraqis want them to leave immediately. It also indicates that those who have fought against the occupier, such as the radical cleric, Moqtada Sadr, are far more popular among Iraqis than men such as Iyad Allawi - the former CIA asset appointed by the US to head Iraq's new interim government - of whom two-thirds hold negative views. And by this time next year, Iraq is likely to have cost the US taxpayer around US$300bn.
With Bush facing a tough reelection fight in November, the White House needed to show an increasingly sceptical electorate a light at the end of the Iraq tunnel. That's why June 30 (the date now designated for the handover of Iraq to an interim government) was made sacrosanct long before Washington had the foggiest idea of what precisely it planned to do on that day.
And the plans that have emerged in recent weeks are the outcome of bitter infighting, both in Washington and Baghdad. The Bush administration recognised that its handpicked Iraqi g overning c ouncil (IGC) lacked legitimacy, but hoped to shore it up by having it preside over the choosing of a new government at a series of tightly controlled regional caucuses.
That idea was nixed by Iraq's single most powerful leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who made it clear that the Shi'ite majority would only accept an elected government.
So, the UN was called in first to persuade Sistani to delay elections until January, and then to devise a plan for choosing a new government. In the end, though, the US viceroy in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, took charge and picked a new government dominated by leftovers from the discredited IGC.
It may be granted substantial sovereign authority, thanks to the UN Security Council, but Iraq's new interim government has no internal legitimacy. Indeed, its mandate is simply to organise elections to be held within six months. The Kurds are threatening to walk away, aware that Sistani plans to tear up the interim law that grants them a veto over a future constitution. And many leaders of the new government wouldn't survive an election - a reality that creates a disincentive for sticking to the schedule. On the other hand, failure to do so would be likely to provoke a mass Shi'ite rebellion.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has warned the new government that stabilising Iraq requires drawing many of those currently waging war on the occupation into the political process. Whether that can be achieved remains to be seen. While the US hopes Iraqi forces will take charge of day-to-day security, the soldiers in these units are likely be swayed by the currents around them. Already, whole units have refused to fight insurgents.
The new government is talking about imposing martial law - not exactly conducive to organising an election campaign.
Bush, last week, made the unfortunate suggestion that the model for Iraq may be President Hamid Karzai's Afghanistan: unfortunate because Karzai is in effect not much more than the mayor of Kabul.
Powell was right, of course. The US broke Iraq and then found itself reluctant to pay the price of taking ownership. The June 30 handover is the equivalent of a band-aid designed to create the impression that Iraq has been put back together. The reality is that Iraq remains badly broken and its future, whole or in pieces, may be decided only after years of bitter struggles.
Tony Karon is senior editor of Time magazine's online edition
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