FPIF Commentary

Posing the Right Question

By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) | July 30, 2004

Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

Emulating the popular game show “Jeopardy,” if the answer is “Iraq,” can you formulate the question?

Consider the following:

Bremer created a special commission empowered to review the activities of political parties and candidates and to bar those who affiliated with militias, espouse hatred and terror, or violate other laws.

Bremer set the terms of office for the national security advisor, chief of intelligence, and the 33 inspector generals (one for each ministry) at five years, taking the incumbents well into the term of office for the government to be elected January 2005.

The Occupation Beyond Sovereignty

Obviously, there is tension between Bremer’s 97 edicts—particularly those with appointment timelines or ones establishing new laws or sentences—and the Hague and Geneva conventions under which the application of occupation statutes end. Having been ceded “full sovereignty” by the occupation authority, the interim government must have the power to rescind or ignore any occupation edict—including the one specifying the procedure by which the interim government can legally disavow any edict.

Functioning as a further barrier to complete sovereignty is UN Resolution 1546, which imposes its own broad limitation: the interim government is to refrain from any action whose effects “on Iraq’s destiny” will extend beyond January 2005 when the Transitional Government assumes office. In itself, this language suggests that the U.S. and UK, the two countries that crafted the resolution, are using the UN as a surrogate for their continuing direct intervention in Iraq. By forbidding a supposedly sovereign government from acting, the resolution sets up the UN as an “international sovereign” whose pronouncements trump national sovereignty.

The practical result of complying with this section of the resolution would be wholesale drift. Iraq’s “destiny” will not wait for six months. It is being shaped today, tomorrow, and every tomorrow thereafter in all its aspects—social, political, cultural, economic, civic, and environmental.

In short, while accepting reconstruction help and security training and assistance from the international community, the interim government must set its own course and pace. It must create momentum for equitable economic and political policies that respect Iraqi culture and tradition but encourage the internalization of fundamental human rights and civil liberties for every Iraqi.

The remaining short-term U.S. objective in Iraq is to shift completely the front-line burden for security to Iraqis. Reasoning that a lower U.S. /MNF profile ought to reduce the violence, Iraq’s interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, is eager to assume this responsibility as quickly as Iraqis can be trained and equipped. Similarly, the UN may find Allawi and his cabinet eager for Iraqi, not UN, solutions to other long-standing needs.

It is commonplace in Bush administration circles to assert that September 11, 2001 “changed everything.” In reality, as 27 former diplomats and senior military commanders stated in Late June, the fundamentals of life in the U.S. have not changed. So too, in Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s downfall and the country’s military occupation have had a mainly political effect, but the fundamental needs of life in Iraq remain—physical security, the end of violence, steady work for steady pay.

If the interim government is to succeed, it must be completely free—that is, sovereign—to set Iraq’s course, free from U.S. edicts and ill-conceived UN resolutions.

If Iraq is the answer, the question has to be: “Where do three sovereigns divide one sovereignty?”

 (Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, online at www.fpif.org, a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)

For More Analysis from Foreign Policy In Focus:

From Iraq to Asia—the Butterfly Effect
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (July 8, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0407butterfly.html

Charging on in Iraq—But Which Way?
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (June 7, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0406charging.html

The Defense of “Command Influence”
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (May 18, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0405comminf.html

How Long a War?
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (May 13, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0405byrdwar.html

Of Rumor and Reality
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (May 13, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404rumorreality.html

The Psychology of War: Iraq and Vietnam
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (April 7, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404iraq-vietnam.html

Rendering an Account on Iraq
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (March 18, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0403iraq-ann.html

Why So Many Were So Wrong for So Long
By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (February 5, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402wrong.html

Fighting By the Rules, Not Against Them
By Col. Dan Smith, (Ret.) (December 18, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0312rules.html

Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2004. All rights reserved.

Recommended citation:
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), “Posing the Right Question,” (Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 30, 2004).

Web location:
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0407question.html

Production Information:
Writer: Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)
Editor: John Gershman, IRC
Layout: Chellee Chase-Saiz, IRC