Some folks aren’t too sanguine about turning administration of Iraq, post-war, to the UN.
‘If the UN has a say in Iraq, the first thing they’ll probably do is put Saddam back in power.’ Or, more likely, they’ll do the next worst thing: install as high commissioner a non-Iraqi Arab bureaucrat — say, Hans Blix sidekick Mohamed el-Baradei or Boutros-Boutros Ghali, currently underemployed at the ridiculous Francophonie. He’d effectively wind up as an Arab League minder, there to ensure that the Iraqis didn’t get any funny ideas (rule of law, representative government) which might unduly discombobulate the Egyptians, Saudis et al.
Even if you wound up with a benign — indeed, comic — authoritarian like Lord Ashdown of the Balkans, that’s not what Iraq needs. The UN doesn’t solve problems, it manages them in perpetuity: it turns them into Les Misérables; come back two decades later and it’s still running. Even without the corruption and drugs and child-sex rings, it’s not an impressive record. Any German contemplating Palestine’s ‘refugee’ ‘camps’, now celebrating their golden jubilee, ought to be grateful his country enjoyed the straightforward benefits of victors’ justice.
Ideally, and ultimately, it has to be up to the Iraqi people. But handing out ballots today seems a foolish gesture. In the interim, somebody needs to administer things. An American adminstration, whatever its nature, is more likely to be short — indeed, the danger is that it will be too short, and that political and econmic patience with rebuilding Iraq will wane, or we’ll undergo our own “regime change,” before the moment is right.
As to the “legitimacy” of an American provisional government in Iraq in the eyes of the UN — well, I don’t see how it can be any less legitimate a representative of the people than, say, the current regime, 100% vote or not. The UN is full of representatives of revolutionary governments, one-party governments, puppet governments, and coup leaders. The difference here eludes me.
(via NZPundit)
UPDATE: Here’s a quite bit more on how the UN and EU have handled Kosovo, as a comparison. Via Power Line.