Editorial

Bush's Address to United Nations Reflects Crisis of U.S. Policy

One year ago U.S. President George W. Bush warned that the United Nations would be rendered irrelevant if it failed to endorse the war plans of the United States against Iraq. Last week Bush appeared before the same UN General Assembly demanding that it provide financial and military support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Of course, the irony was lost on no one. The main point, however, is that the Bush administration is facing deepening crises in its Iraq policy on several fronts and is desperate for the UN to bail it out of its difficulties.

The main reason for the U.S. crisis is that the Iraqi people are refusing to submit to the American occupation. They are continuing to fight and are inflicting serious losses on American troops. Attacks have also been launched against UN offices with the result that the UN mission has been sharply reduced and may soon remove all of its staff from the country. Collaborators with the U.S. occupation have also been targetted for attack.

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff has stated that an additional 15,000 to 20,000 troops are needed in Iraq immediately, and that if this number of international troops is not committed within a few weeks the U.S. will be forced to call up more National Guard and Reserve forces. To date, no additional countries have offered to send troops to Iraq in the absence of a UN resolution, and most countries are refusing to send troops unless they are under UN command. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that, with or without a UN resolution, few international troops are expected.

Nevertheless, at this time, the Bush administration appears more concerned about rounding up financial contributions from the international community to relieve the U.S. of some of the financial burdens of the occupation. It has suggested that $20 billion is needed immediately in order to begin the reconstruction of Iraq's destroyed infrastructure. To date Canada has offered $200 million, while the European Union has offered a similar amount. The sticking point has been Washington's refusal to give up any of its control over how the money will be invested and which companies will get the lion's share of the contracts.

Following his address to the UN General Assembly, Bush spent two days meeting with foreign leaders, including France's Jacques Chirac, Germany's Gerhard Shroeder and Russia's Vladimir Putin. Chirac reiterated the position of his government that the U.S. must quickly transfer power to Iraqi institutions, beginning with an immediate symbolic transfer of power and followed by an actual transfer of power within six months. Bush responded to this position by categorically stating that no "foreign" country would tell the Iraqi people when or how quickly they would assume sovereignty over their country. (Apparently, Bush does not consider the United States to be a "foreign" country in relation to Iraq.)

Although Bush's meeting with Shroeder reportedly went more smoothly, with both leaders stating that their differences are over, he apparently left the meeting empty-handed. Bush's meeting with Putin was reported to be equally unproductive in terms of financial or military commitments, as were meetings with the leaders of India and Pakistan.

The failure of Bush's diplomatic mission leaves the U.S. in a rather uncomfortable predicament. It has become the largest debtor nation in the history of the world and its imperial adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have greatly increased its debt burden. Unemployment has been steadily growing within the U.S. and the Iraq war, far from solving U.S. economic problems has further exacerbated them. On top of this, Bush is facing an election campaign within a matter of months with his popular support dropping steadily. In other words, the United States is not exactly in a favourable bargaining position.

The "allies", on whose shoulders the U.S. wants to dump its economic woes, really have no incentive to assist the Bush administration out of the mess it has created for itself. All they have to do is wait for Bush to be dumped and then proceed to extract concessions out of his successor. Whoever that successor may be, his position will inevitably be weaker even than that of Bush, having inherited a bankrupt economy and a population which has lost its taste for military adventures. Therefore, it is entirely likely that, regardless of whether or not the U.S. eventually succeeds in extracting a resolution out of the UN Security Council, it will continue to fail to extract money or troops out of it "allies" and its crisis in Iraq will intensify.