Iraq at the Turn: Auditing Arrogance

June 23, 2004

Iraq at the Turn: Auditing Arrogance

Three months before the start of the American operation in Iraq, I visited the United States where I met with Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

It is clear that the international community is interested in a rapid stabilization of the situation in Iraq, as well as in the formation of a government in Iraq that would be run by Iraqis. In this regard, it is important to take into account the fact that this is not achievable in the context of an abrupt departure of American forces unless their mission has first been transferred to the United Nations - a fact Russia understands very well.

Russia has an interest in Washington returning to a position of collective action in dealing with crisis situations, to reject the unilateralism that has been on display in Iraq. But Moscow understands that this can happen not through a crushing defeat of the United States in Iraq, but by the evolutionary turnaround of the Bush Administration toward involving the United Nations. This has already begun, and the essence of Russian policy is to encourage it forward.

And in support of this, Russia's relationship with the European countries is of vital importance. During the last Iraqi crisis, Europe was essentially divided between those who supported U.S. military action and those who were opposed. Games based on these disagreements, however, are counterproductive. Russia's role might be to encourage European Union member-states, especially France and Germany, to take a position that combines their negative attitude towards the unilateral use of force with active support of collective efforts to stabilize the situation in Iraq, using the mechanism of the United Nations. And such actions should be developed in cooperation with the United States. The development of such a consensus should evolve under the aegis of the United Nations in order to solve the problem of legitimacy and to establish the authority of the operation to reconstruct Iraq.

 

Yevgeny Primakov, the former prime minister and foreign minister of Russia as well as a former head of its Foreign Intelligence Service, is the president of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This piece appears in the Summer 2004 issue of The National Interest as part of its "Iraq at the Turn" symposium.