2004

Despite a difference in scale, the horrific attack of the UN compound in Baghdad bears a striking resemblance to that of 9/11 in the US. The Shock, condemnation and outpouring of sympathy for innocent Civilian victim were universal. People as well as governments all over the world suddenly rediscovered that the UN means more to them than they had thought over recent years. Tragedies have this insightful function.

The United States and its coalition partners should seize the moment and revamp their relationship with the UN. For it is still the one global organization that commands high moral authority, notwithstanding its organizational weakness.

This is a rare moment when an imaginative internationalism could be revived and reasserted. A renewed internationalism centered in the UN is squarely in the interests of US policy in Iraq and the Middle East. For one thing, managing the stabilization, reconstruction and democratization efforts under a UN flag would avert the growing potential for a lonely quagmire for the US in Iraq. It would allow for cost-sharing of what looks likely to be an enormous financial burden over many years. It will diffuse the stigma now settling over the US as an imperialist occupying power, greedy for Iraqi oil and world hegemony.

Mandating a lead role for the UN in Iraq will need not be at the expense of the indispensable US role there. All parties recognize that at the end of the day it is the US that has the military and economic muscle that will be needed. Even detractors like France, Germany and Russia will not dispute the paramount role of the US, nor would they object to a greater UN role in Iraq after the horrors of 8/19.

In a narrower political sense, renewing internationalism through the UN will diffuse the current fruitless debate in Washington and London over Saddam's putative weapons of mass destruction. Constructive debate should now focus on competing scenarios for stabilization, development and democratization of Iraq and real peace in the Middle East.

Bringing the UN back in forcefully will no doubt help all parties concerned. But is will also require a paradigm shift in current US foreign policy - from arrogant unilateralism to creative multilateralism. With a measure of humility, the two principal coalition partners should ask the European Union, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to join as active partners under the UN flag. In view of the events last week, the response is likely to be both swift and positive.

Along the same line, the help of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council should be enlisted. Oman and Bahrain could provide peacekeeping and policing forces. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates can provide financial support.

2Succ_ss in Iraq has become not only a challenge to those who waged the war, but also a requisite for accomplishing the rest of the regional agenda.

An Israeli-Palestinian peace continues to elude all parties. It may have been coincidence of timing, but 8/19 also witnessed a bloody suicide bombing of a passenger bus in Jerusalem. One common element between the two bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem is testing the resolve and staying power of the US. In Jerusalem the perpetrators proudly announced their identity and reason-avenging fellow Palestinian militants hunted down by Israel a few days earlier.

This repeated cycle is now three years old and threatens to escalate. An ultimate target will be the US sponsored Road Map, looking increasingly like another missed opportunity to put an end to the world's longest protracted conflict.

There are clear signs that the hardliners in Israel and Palestine are steadily losing popular support. Their respective constituencies are realizing that this mutual terror is a dead end proposition. It is ultimately the moderate forces in Israel, Palestine, and in the wider region that can isolate and terminate extremist militants on both sides.

The challenge in Iraq, while still monumental, is relatively easier. No Iraqi claimed responsibility for the UN bombing. All major Iraqi political and religious parties condemned it as a heinous act. Both Shi'a and Sunni clergy repudiated the bombing in communal Friday prayers across Iraq.

Thus for the moment the ground is more fertile for isolating and defeating violence in Iraq. The Kurdish north and Shi'a south are relatively pacified. Together they make up more than two-thirds of Iraq's territory and population. The troubled Sunni triangle in the center is pacifiable by an effective policy package of basic service provision, jobs, and promise of a significant political role in the future governance of Iraq.

Saddam internalized in the Sunni population a fear of being overrun and perpetually dominated by their Shi'a and Kurdish compatriots. That fear must be diffused. An emphasis on equitable political power sharing, and a viable role for the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the UN will go a long way toward reducing those fears.

In brief, the US can reclaim the moral high ground internationally now by leading the way for others to rally around the UN. It can do so regionally by calling on the Arab League and neigh boring countries to join in assisting Iraqis to rebuild their country. It can win the hearts and minds of Iraq's Sunni Muslims by asserting a commitment to equity and pluralism. But all of this must be in deed as well as in word, and there is not a moment to waste.