As always, though, the future of the United Nations lies not in what is said or done in the dispirited buildings along New York’s East River, but in what the United Nations’ leading members do to strengthen the organization they created in 1945 to deal with just such a challenge. And the primary role should be played by the organization’s founding member, its largest contributor, its host country. After all, the attack on the U.N. headquarters was also an attack on the United States, since the United Nations’ work in Iraq was clearly in support of American policy objectives.
Yet at this crucial moment the leadership needed from Washington is curiously missing–despite the fact that the United States needs a strong United Nations. If the United Nations is forced to pull out its personnel–men and women working for the key U.S. goals of security, political stability, and economic and social development–American policy in Iraq will also be at risk.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the brilliant and charismatic U.N. leader who died in the bombing, personified the potential of the United Nations’ relationship with the United States. In his extraordinary career, Sergio–my friend for more than 20 years–worked in an astonishing collection of dangerous spots, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lebanon, Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Mozambique and East Timor, where his experience in guiding a war-torn half-island to independence had direct relevance to the challenges in Iraq. While loyally serving his organization, Sergio was usually advancing America’s long-term interests as well. He saw nothing incompatible in this. On the contrary, he believed passionately that the goals of the United Nations and those of the United States were symmetrical, if not always identical. He was a great humanitarian, but he was also a wise political operative whose final days were spent trying to guide a confused American mission on how to deal with the chaotic political scene.
The days immediately following the death of Sergio and his colleagues were sorry ones for the United Nations. Instead of the tragedy’s triggering a coming together of major nations to lay out a plan to protect U.N. personnel, it produced an embarrassing American proposal that was little more than a plea for other nations to serve in the existing American command; an all-too-predictable French counterattack from Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and a toothless Security Council resolution calling for better protection of U.N. personnel. It was an insult to the memory of those who had died in Baghdad. Only the immense sorrow of an organization that had revered Vieira de Mello–and the open grief of his boss, Kofi Annan, whom Sergio had always called “my brother”–seemed genuine.
After a week of inactivity or worse, the United States finally floated a reasonable proposal last Wednesday. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage spoke publicly of the possibility that the United States would agree to “a multinational force under U.N. leadership, but an American would be the U.N. commander.”
This idea, or variants of it, has many precedents, including the command structure in Korea. There are other arrangements that would serve similar goals. My own preference is for a multinational force, perhaps headed by the Norwegians–NATO members who are also strongly pro-United Nations–with additional troops from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. They would have the vital mission of protecting U.N. personnel, and would ultimately report to the same “dual-hatted” U.S. commander envisioned by Armitage.
The important point is not the specific structure but the need to create a system that allows many other nations to join the military effort in Iraq without undermining the overall authority of the United States. It is essential that the Pentagon, which continues to grumble about any “compromises,” recognizes that such arrangements are not compromise but actions in the national interest that could result over time in lower casualties and costs to United States forces. We have the most to gain from a successful U.N. mission in Iraq–and the most to lose if it fails.
This issue cannot remain in its present unresolved state when President Bush speaks before the U.N. General Assembly in late September. Last year’s U.N. speech was perhaps the finest of his presidency. This year he will have to lay out more clearly America’s goals in Iraq, how he proposes to achieve them–and how the United Nations can get the kind of support it needs from Washington. The sooner America realizes that and acts to strengthen the United Nations, the quicker it can reduce the risks and costs of the Iraq quagmire.
