Brokering peace in Iraq
CHINMAYA R. GHAREKHAN
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The part played by the U.N. Security Council in shaping events in Iraq during the wars
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THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE OVER IRAQ — Politics in the UN Security Council 1980-2005: David M. Malone; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 595.
The American intervention in Iraq in the spring of 2003, without the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council, severely damaged the image and credibility of the U.N., so much so, columnists and analysts in many countries pronounced the demise of the organisation. However, this profound disappointment with the U.N. produced one positive fallout. People across the world woke up to the fact that the U.N. could not be allowed to disappear or become totally defunct and that something had to be done to salvage it for the simple reason that this was the only institution that they had, and that it was in the common interest of the international community to reform it and to make it relevant to the extent that it could. The intense and intelligent interest in the functioning of the U.N., in particular the Security Council, that has been in evidence during the past three years has seldom been witnessed before. The debate about the relevance or otherwise of the U.N. has been most healthy, no less for the organisation itself.
A number of good books have been published in recent months on the U.N., including one by Paul Kennedy of Yale University, titled The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations. David M.Malone, the current High Commissioner of Canada in India, and a well-known scholar of the U.N., has made an important contribution to this ongoing debate by bringing out this timely and extremely well-written book. Malone has impressive credentials for writing the book. In addition to serving as the deputy permanent representative of Canada during the critical period when the Council dealt with the Iraq problem, he steered with distinction for six eventful years the highly regarded think tank in New York, the International Peace Academy, which has close working relationship with the U.N.
Gulf wars
The book is a scholarly, very well-researched and referenced narrative of the involvement of the Security Council in the Iraqi situation beginning with the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 and covering Saddam Hussein's disastrous and arrogant attempt to swallow Kuwait in 1990, the Gulf War of 1991, the rigorous sanctions imposed on Iraq, the long, frustrating and highly politicised but generally effective weapons inspection regime embodied in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and ending with the second Gulf War which started in 2003 and is still continuing. Malone has also dealt extensively, if somewhat excessively, with the Volcker report. In the process of describing the events over the past 25 years, Malone has meticulously brought out the interplay of forces among the five permanent members and how they go to considerable lengths to accommodate one other's concerns. Equally significantly, he has revealed the significant role that the Secretary General is able to play in defusing situations from time to time. It was particularly interesting to follow the silent, yet effective initiatives taken by Secretary General Perez de Cuellar during the handling of the Iran-Iraq war by the Security Council. Incidentally, there is also a fascinating section in the concluding chapter on the subject of the office of Secretary General, posing the question: more secretary or more general?
Not surprisingly, Malone comes to the conclusion that the system of collective security enshrined in the Charter works best when the five permanent members are able to find consensus among themselves on a given issue. This consensus was most easily and effectively achieved following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and broke down completely in March 2003. The reason for great power unanimity in 1990 was that it happened soon after the end of the Cold War, but also because, in my opinion, the act of aggression was so blatant that the Soviet Union would have found it extremely difficult not to condemn it and support all consequential action in the Council even if the Cold War had not ended. By 2003, not only had the international scene altered dramatically, with Russia once more asserting its influence; the proposed intervention by the U.S. and its partners in the coalition of the willing was sought to be justified on such patently unjustifiable grounds that it became possible even for traditional friends of the U.S. not to support the `second resolution' which the U.K. in particular was desperate to obtain.
Twists and turns
While narrating the twists and turns in the Council as it grappled with the conflicting interests of its influential members, Malone has vividly brought out the truth of the dictum that foreign policy, in the final analysis, is all about domestic politics.
The book has the added attraction of including concise yet ample objective and dispassionate historical background contexts of all the major events. Malone lets the chips fall where they might, without undue concern about the sensibilities of the various actors in the game, which powers, great and small, play at the U.N.
His analysis of the regulatory and legislative functions of the Council breaks new ground, though he does not go as far as to assert that the Council does not accept any limitation on its powers. To readers in India, this might remind them of the controversy between the judiciary, executive and the legislature.
Permanent seat
Malone is supportive of India's aspirations for a permanent seat in the Council, though he does not seem enthusiastic about the proposal to enlarge its membership on the ground that it would adversely impact on its effective functioning. At the same time, he lays out, without wanting to do so, convincing arguments for India, and others, demanding a place around the horseshoe table; he reminds us that the Council, in the years to come, will increasingly involve itself with non-security related issues such as environment, development and human rights. In that scenario, it would make good sense for India to want to have a permanent seat in it.
The U.N., more so the Security Council is a political body, as Malone's book clearly brings out. For some inexplicable reason, Iraq attracts a lot of sympathetic interest among Indians.
This book goes a long way in helping us understand better the course of Iraq's fate over the past quarter of a century as also the part played by the Security Council in shaping events in that unfortunate country.
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