Exactly what is the UN going to do in Iraq? The choices before it are stark: it could either legitimize the occupation and or help Iraqis end it. While speculation is rife, the draft resolution tabled today gives us little hope. For Iraqis, it probably is not unexpected from the UN they have known in recent history.

Just as Kofi Annan indicated on Meet the Press earlier this month, the resolution affirms a multinational forces under “unified” command. Consider the following excerpt from the interview:

NBC: Do you believe that there will still be a United Nations multinational security force in Iraq?

SEC'Y-GENERAL: In the sense that the council will probably authorize a multinational force to remain in Iraq to help create a secure environment. I think it is going to be part of the new resolution that the council will be discussing and approving, which will cover the period after 30 June. Obviously the new government would also be consulted, but there will be a resolution authorizing a multinational force and encouraging governments to come together in a genuine international effort to help stabilize Iraq. And, quite frankly, it's in everybody's interest that we do whatever we can to stabilize Iraq.

NBC: Would that allow the United States to draw down some of their forces?

SEC'Y-GEN: I think it depends. If we are able to attract other governments, other countries that are now not in the theater to deploy troops, that may be possible. But it would depend on how fast and how quickly we are able to get other governments to join and provide troops.

NBC: Do you think France, Germany or Russia, who had opposed the war, would be willing to provide troops?

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: At this stage, I cannot say that they are ready to do it. But down the line, one never knows.

First, under whose command would such a multinational force function? Surely, it will not be a multinational force under Iraqi command, although this is what sovereignty should have meant. The very fact that such a resolution is being tabled without first specifying the line of command is an ominous sign.

Second, what governments would Mr. Annan try to attract? Obviously, developing countries and in particular Muslim countries. As The Observer of May 9 reported, Tony Blair is to ask for Muslim troops from Pakistan; “the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon have called for 'channels to be opened' with Pakistan and India, which, have said they will consider sending forces only if a United Nations resolution on the future of Iraq can be passed”. Is the idea then a large contingent of Muslim troops under US command?

Third, what exactly happens after June 30? A caretaker government takes over civil administration; Paul Bremer departs – only to be substituted by John Negroponte as the first US ambassador to ‘sovereign” Iraq. Presently the US envoy to the UN, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 95 to 3 to approve Negroponte’s appointment. Kofi Annan had already endorsed the nomination in strong terms: "He's an outstanding professional, a great diplomat and a wonderful ambassador" (Profile: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3640787.stm).

Negroponte was Reagan’s ambassador to Honduras during the Contra years. Noam Chomsky, commenting on his appointment as the UN envoy in 2001 put it thus “As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his government was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in a vetoed resolution”.

Fourth, what exactly would Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan achieve? For one, perhaps the dissolution of the Iraqi Governing Council, an entity clearly without legitimacy. For another, not much will change. US commanders will retain military command, Washington will control the reconstruction funds; legal arrangements are already in place to ensure the same. As Robert Fisk, the prominent British journalist has remarked, “the transfer is a fraud”.

In these circumstances, the authorization of a multinational force can act only to legitimize this occupation, not to end it. Yet, this is a moment when the UN could have acted otherwise. From being cast as irrelevant, it has now emerged as indispensable for the occupation. Whence does the UN derive this indispensability? In large part, from the fact that the war was based on lies, an imperialistic ignorance of the limits of military prowess – and most importantly, no understanding of patterns of resistance that colonial occupations have historically engendered. Deaths of many innocent Iraqi civilians later - these factors - coupled with the outrage of ordinary people have brought home to the occupying powers the message that they cannot do it alone, as they had thought they could. It is this colossal tragedy of death and resistance that has ascribed to the UN the relevance that it has now acquired.

The UN can act to honour this tragedy or to humiliate it.

However, what the UN can or cannot do is determined by its member states. While the Security Council remains inaccessible to majority of the member states, those which are asked to send troops are sovereign states and need not agree to actions that help legitimate the occupation. The tragedy of Iraq has also rendered unto them a unique historical role in the logic of contemporary imperialism. They must all act on it.

Ananya Mukherjee Reed is Associate Professor, Dept of Political Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her address is: ananya@yorku.ca

###