Gran Bretagna, The Guardian: Gli Usa in cerca di alleati

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I piani di Bush per l'Iraq necessitano di mezzi finanziari e uomini. Che mancano.

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Gli Stati uniti rischiano di passare dall'unilateralismo, consapevolmente voluto, ad un inatteso isolamento. L'occupazione militare dell'Iraq e la ricostruzione del paese richiedono uomini e mezzi che gli Stati uniti e l'alleato britannico non sono in grado di fornire in misura adeguata.

Ma, a parte l'Italia, la Polonia e pochi altri, nessun paese sembra intenzionato ad inmpegnarsi in Iraq senza il coinvolgimento delle Nazioni Unite.

The US needs allies - but is too proud to pay the price

Bush has ambitious plans for Iraq, but lacks money and manpower

Martin Woollacott

Friday July 18, 2003

The Guardian

The US is in danger of moving from a unilateralism it freely chose to an isolation it neither desired nor expected. As the costs and difficulties of reconstructing Iraq come home to Washington, it looks as if America is going to be left to bear the burden without the major aid from its friends and allies, other than Britain, that it now desperately wants.

An over-confident administration had at first assumed it would not need much help from others in Iraq. They then concluded they did need it but that it would not be too difficult to drum up. Now they are realising they are unlikely, at least in the near future, to get soldiers and financial help from other countries in anything like the quantities they had hoped.

Nor is it clear that an American agreement to expand the role of the UN in Iraq, if it should be forthcoming, would necessarily open the aid gates. Some of the countries explaining their reluctance to contribute on the grounds that the UN is not sufficiently involved, may be doing so in the expectation that the Bush administration will never go far enough in that direction, and that their UN bluff, as it were, will never be called.

Some opponents of the war and critics of the US presence in Iraq may feel that the motto of this story is "serves them right", but the consequences could be bad for all concerned, including Iraqis. It could increase the chances of America making the wrong choices in Iraq, denying that country the genuine new start it deserves, while adding a new dimension of bitterness to American attitudes to the rest of the world.

Americans are already disposed to see themselves as doing far more than their share of the work of keeping international order. Where others see empire or at least the pursuit of interest, many Americans see their efforts abroad as either selfless or senseless, or sometimes both.

The disconnection between the American view of reality and that of other countries can be amazing. Reports speak of "calls" from congressional committees - shocked by rising estimates of occupation - for "more international sharing" of those costs. Such calls are made as if international help was available on tap whenever the US should choose to turn the faucet. There seems to be scant understanding, despite everything, of the way in which American resistance to cooperation with others, not only on Iraq, might induce in them a reluctance to cooperate with America. Senator Edward Kennedy would not make this mistake, and yet even he can speak of the "best trained troops in the world" tied down in policing in Iraq as if it was self-evident, first, that they are in fact well trained, and, second, that others, not so well trained and more disposable, should take their place. As for Donald Rumsfeld, he is reduced to bizarre musings that the US, which recently closed its peacekeeping centre, might take the lead in training and gathering together an international corps of peacekeepers for use in emergencies.

The Indian government's decision not to send an army division to Iraq, while not absolutely final, is a big blow to the Pentagon, since India and Pakistan represented its main hope for large contingents of well-trained soldiers that would be relatively cheap to maintain in Iraq.

The possibility that Nato might be involved as an organisation, beyond its support for the small Polish contingent, now seems even more remote, and Russia, France and Germany have made it clear they will not contribute troops unless there is a UN mandate.

Pakistan may well follow India in deciding not to send troops unless there is a UN or other international mandate, because the Iraq war was even more unpopular there than it was in India. If so, the attempt to internationalise the occupation force will continue as a comedy involving a cast of tiny contingents requiring so much American and British logistical and other help as to be hardly worth having. They may provide some politically useful diversity, but what the US thinks it needs now is not political cover but a lot of the military heavy-lifting to be done by others, so that some of their own men can go home. There are only about a dozen armies in the world which can provide such help and, at the moment, none of them are coming to the party.

What is true militarily is also true financially. Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external affairs, said this week in Washington that Europe was ready to contribute toward Iraq's reconstruction, but only if the funds it might provide were administered by the UN or the World Bank.

Arrangements of that kind might be made, but the sums so far mentioned by the EU are small, a drop in the bucket when the US is now looking at estimated monthly costs of $3.9bn. The US wants an international donors' conference for Iraq in the autumn, but even if new arrangements are in place by then, the reluctance to commit funds which might in effect simply subsidise what would still be an American-dominated Iraq project is unlikely to be wholly dispelled. The possibility of a new UN mandate, enlarging the very marginal UN role in Iraq, is being investigated in New York, and will presumably be discussed by Tony Blair and George Bush.

Such a new mandate would presumably aim at facilitating both military and financial contributions. But the fine line between raising the UN profile beyond the point at which it would not be acceptable to the US administration, and giving the world body a role which would assuage the doubts of countries who do not wish to be seen as just propping up the Americans, will be a difficult one to tread.

American difficulties in Iraq are not only a consequence of the attacks they are suffering in the central part of the country. They also arise from the fact that elements of the extremely ambitious and radical plan for physical and political reconstruction of Iraq, involving years of full American control - which the administration decided on before the war - co-exist uneasily with the less ambitious but still problematic scheme for a quicker handover to Iraqis that it stumbled into after taking the over country.

Add to that the contradiction represented by an administration which now very much wants international help but finds it humiliating to pay any serious political price for it. And add to that the reluctance of many countries to get involved even if the US was to make real changes.

The chances remain high that Iraqi reconstruction will in time turn the corner, but probably without much help from others. In that case, America and Britain and the new Iraq will be alone with their success, but it would be better for all if such a success were a more general achievement