When an Identity Crisis Goes Global
by Paula R. Newberg, Op-Ed
August 24, 2003

Paula R. Newberg is an international consultant who works with countries in conflict and transition.

WASHINGTON — When the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was hit by a truck bomb Tuesday, killing the United Nations' top diplomat in the country, it was not just Iraq's reconstruction and the U.S. occupation that were put at greater risk. The terrorist attack also raised questions about who and what the United Nations stands for, and why anyone would blame it for U.S. foreign policy.[…]

The U.S. was initially reluctant to include the U.N. in Iraq. But in the aftermath of the Baghdad bombing, the U.S. is tarnishing the organization as it now embraces it. In calling the attack on the U.N. headquarters "an attack on the United States," former Ambassador Richard Holbrooke erased the critical distinction between Washington and an international community that has repeatedly criticized American actions. And when L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. top administrator in Iraq, called the incident an attempt to "sabotage nation-building," he bolstered those who believe that Iraq was already a nation before the U.S. arrived and now needs to be returned to its people.

When the question of intervention in Iraq resurfaced two years ago, many observers argued that the U.N. should stay out if it couldn't set the terms of its involvement. Others now think that the U.N. can smooth the rough edges of U.S. force by finding ways for Iraqis to help run their own reconstruction. Many cynically suspect that the U.N. will be stuck with Iraq when U.S. patience runs out.

All these views may be true. All share the suspicion that common cause between the U.S. and the U.N. creates common enemies — and the Baghdad bombing may have proved them right. Once again, the U.N. is working with a superpower whose policies contradict the views of many of its members. Once again, U.S. prerogatives seem to have come perilously close to overtaking the U.N.'s human rights mandate. And once again, skeptics in Iraq and elsewhere, whether peacefully or violently inclined, see little difference between those who wage war and those who profess peace.

These perceptions cast a shadow over the U.N.'s new trusteeship role in Liberia as that country emerges from an avaricious dictatorship. It's not because trusteeship is bad but because it risks being incomplete. The U.S. has decided that Liberia, less important to its security than Iraq, is too troublesome to ignore — so the U.N. is now in charge of fixing it. This may satisfy African states whose soldiers will keep the peace, but if the U.S. has left Liberia to the U.N., it's reasonable to fear that both the U.N. and Liberia will soon be left wanting.

This week, the U.S. will again ask the U.N. to share its burdens in Iraq. Fearful of further instability, anxious member states may increase their assistance. They're likely to want to enlarge the U.N.'s role as well. If the U.S. imprudently refuses to cede control, and pushes the U.N. to the periphery once again, everyone will lose — and the lesson of last week's tragedy will have been lost.