| Moving Along |
20 October 2003
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Security Council Accepts US Occupation of Iraq
The Bush Administration moved a bit closer to harmonious relations with the rest of the world over Iraq with a 15-0 Security Council vote in favor of the latest resolution on Iraq. The details are not particularly interesting, full of the usual meta-language in which UN resolutions are written. What is significant is the acceptance by the world body of the Anglo-American fait accompli in Iraq; even the Syrians went along.
That there would someday be an acceptance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq was inevitable once the Bush Administration had launched its war. The alternatives to the current arrangement is a different set of occupiers or none at all. A different occupying force would require negotiations, logistical planning and money to alter the identities, but not the purpose, of the occupiers. None at all would create a power vacuum in Iraq that would lead to civil war and regional instability.
However, that is not to say that the acceptance by the world at large needed to come last week as it did. The delay could have gone for months if not years. And in all that time, Iraq would continue to be a bone of contention between the Europeans, the Americans, the Muslim world and the Asian powers.
President Putin of the Russian Federation has proved again that he is probably the most diplomatically adept world leader with his orchestration of this vote. At first holding out with France and Germany, then changing his tune at the last minute and bringing the rejectionist front along with him, Mr. Putin has stored up even more chits with he Bush White House and with the Western Europeans. Washington made some concessions in this latest draft, while the rejectionists had to yield on the timetable for Iraqi self-governance, but in Moscow, the government spokesman could honestly say, "Russia got 99% of what it wanted."
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