Reçu de André Nahum : « Voici un article intéressant paru sur le NYPost ce 16 Mai 2004. Je vous en ai traduit une partie. »
Nous reproduisons, ci-après, l’extrait traduit, suivi de l’intégralité du texte anglais, avec, intercalés dans le texte anglais, quelques mini-résumés en français, de A. Nahum. Volontaires – compétents en matière de traduction – demandés. M. Macina.

16 mai 2004

NYPost

A quelques semaines du transfert du pouvoir aux Irakiens, les USA semblent se préparer à jeter l’enfant avec l’eau du bain en échange d’une résolution du Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU.

Convaincues que l’administration Bush cherche une sortie stratégique avec l’appui de l’ONU, la France et la Russie ont déjà commencé à faire monter les enchères pour la nouvelle résolution souhaitée par les Américains. Dans une série de déclarations, les deux nations, qui disposent d’un droit de veto, ont clairement montré qu’elles ne voulaient rien de moins qu’une renonciation humiliante des Etats-Unis à leurs responsabilités en Irak.

Pour commencer, ils veulent que Lakhdar Brahimi, l’homme de l’ONU à Bagdad, forme le nouveau gouvernement.

Le diplomate algérien a déjà dit clairement qu’il cherchait de nouveaux visages, ce qui veut dire qu’il exclut tous ceux qui ont travaillé avec la coalition dirigée par les Etats-Unis depuis la libération de l’Irak.

En d’autres termes, non seulement les libérateurs n’auront pas leur mot à dire dans la formation du gouvernement de transition, mais tous les Irakiens qui ont travaillé dur pour que la libération soit un succès seront également punis.

Brahimi et ses sponsors français et russes insistent également pour que les Etats-Unis n’aient aucun contrôle sur la nouvelle armée irakienne, la police et le corps de défense civil.

Ils voudraient créer deux présences militaires en Irak, l’une conduite par les Américains et l’autre par M. Brahimi. On ne voit pas bien les tâches respectives de ces deux forces. Les Américains seraient-ils cantonnés dans leurs bases éloignées avec autant d’occupations que dans un désert des Tatars, en attendant que les kamikazes viennent les frapper ?

Dans le même temps cependant, le plan Brahimi envisage que toutes les factures continuent à être envoyées aux Américains - qui ont alloué plus de 80 milliards de dollars au projet irakien.

En d’autres termes l’ONU gouverne et les Américains paient.

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Kofi the King, Amir Taheri

WITH just seven weeks to the scheduled transfer of power to the Iraqis, the United States seems to be preparing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in exchange for a resolution from the U.N.Security Council.

Convinced that the Bush administration is looking for an exit strategy with the help of the United Nations, France and Russia have already started raising the stakes on the new Iraq resolution sought by the Americans. In a series of recent statements and leaks, the two veto-holding powers have made it clear that they will not settle for anything less than a humiliating abdication by the United States of its responsibilities in Iraq. To begin with, they want Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. point-man in Baghdad, to name the new Iraqi government.

The Algerian diplomat has already made it clear that he is looking for "fresh faces," which means excluding all those who have worked with the U.S.-led Coalition since liberation.
In other words: Not only will the liberators have no say in who governs Iraq in the transition, but those Iraqis who have worked hard to make liberation a success will also be punished for their efforts.

Brahimi and his French and Russian backers also insist that the United States should have no control over the newly created Iraqi armed forces, police and civil defense corps.

This would create two military presences in Iraq: one led by the Americans, the other by Mr. Brahimi. It is not clear what each of those two would do. Would the Americans be cantoned in remote bases, spending time in a Desert of the Tatars exercise in waiting for suicide bombers to strike?

At the same time, however, the Brahimi plan envisages that all bills will continue to be sent to the Americans, who have allocated over $80 billion to the Iraqi project. In other words: The U.N. rules, the Americans pay. Oh, to be sure, Mr. Brahimi will consult the U.S. and U.K. allies on occasion. But the two coalition partners will have no more of a say in what happens than will Russia, France and China, who opposed the liberation of Iraq in the first place.

The veto-wielding trio still refuse to acknowledge that there was liberation. Instead, the Franco-Russian "concepts" circulating for a new resolution speak of "ending the occupation." This means that Iraq was free under Saddam Hussein but became occupied territory when the Coalition forces arrived.

Paris et Moscou croient que l’administration Bush est assez désespérée pour accepter tout ce que l’on voudra.

This is why they insist that the future U.N. interim czar should have the power to revoke any of the numerous edicts approved by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraq Governing Council - e.g., Brahimi could cancel the edict that banned the Ba'ath Party. He also intends to cancel the statement of principles that commits Iraq to building a Western-style democratic system rather than a modified version of Arab despotism.

"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" shouted Shakespeare's forlorn hero.

"A resolution, a resolution, the whole of Iraq for a resolution!" shouts the Bush administration now.

What on earth might justify the handover of Iraq to the United Nations? Not a single Iraqi wants this, although most Iraqis would welcome some role for the U.N. as long as it is not in the driving seat.

Stalin once asked "How many divisions does the Pope have?"

A similar question could be asked about the United Nations.

Les Français, les Russes et les Chinois sont-ils prêts à envoyer des troupes en Irak ? Si oui, quelle sera alors leur mission? Renvoyer les Américains et leurs alliés ?

Those who believed that toppling Saddam was wrong from the start have no interest in investing blood and money to ensure that Bush's theory of regime change produces positive results.

The United Nations does not believe in a democratic Iraq. It has no money to bring in. Nor does it have any troops to contribute. Worse still, it thinks that only by rubbing the Americans' nose in the dirt can it restore its own shattered credibility.

Wherever the U.N. has been in the driver's seat, it has either restored the status quo ante (Sierra Leone), or frozen the status quo (Cambodia). What Iraq needs is something new - let's call it a new life in freedom.

From 1990 to 2003, the U.N. was officially at war against Saddam Hussein; it passed 18 mandatory resolutions on Iraq. But it did nothing to implement any of those resolutions, except through the Oil-for-Food scam in which $4 billion disappeared in corrupt deals that involved senior U.N. officials.

So what is the rationale for putting the U.N. in charge in Iraq, even for a single day?

The liberation of Iraq led to a contract between two sides only: the U.S.-led Coalition of the liberators on the one hand, the people of Iraq on the other. There is no reason to seek a triangle. Two is company, but three is a crowd, even in the most pleasurable instances of a ménage à trois.

The Coalition seized the power that Saddam had confiscated from the people of Iraq. That power must be returned to its rightful owners - the people of Iraq - not to the U.N. or any other outside element.

Now, here is how the U.N. can be useful, although Iraq could still do well without any U.N. presence at all.

The interim government should be chosen by the Iraqis through consultations orchestrated by the Coalition. Even now, it is not too late to organize a conference for this purpose, as the Bonn meeting did for Afghanistan before its liberation.

If such a conference proves difficult to organize in time, a reshuffled version of the Governing Council, in which all the Iraqi political parties, except the Ba'ath, are represented, could form the basis of the transitional government. America should show that it is loyal to its friends and allies, that it does not abandon them for domestic electoral calculations.

The new Iraqi interim government would immediately conclude a series of agreements with the Coalition spelling out the terms under which U.S. and allied forces remain in Iraq during the transition. That would be an arrangement between the Iraqis as hosts and the liberators as guests, with no third party intervention.

The Iraqi interim government could then invite the United Nations to help with organizing general elections next year. The Security Council could then pass a resolution to set up an Iraq election mission.

Even then, Brahimi might not be the best candidate. After all, he was a senior member of an Algerian government that specialized in electoral fraud for three decades. (A Swiss or Norwegian diplomat might be a better choice. One could also enlist Jimmy Carter who, for want of something better to do, likes to travel the world observing elections.)

Regime change in Iraq and putting it on the path of democratization represent the main planks of the Bush administration's global policy. Building a new Iraq is also of vital importance in winning the War on Terror.

It is thus a mystery why anyone should want to risk all that has been achieved so far by handing power over to Kofi Annan and his French and Russian puppet-masters. It even risks domestic disaster for the Bush administration, for it greatly increases the chances for truly broad-based Iraqi unrest before the November U.S. elections.

Le peuple irakien veut se gouverner lui-même et cela nécessite des élections libres et honnêtes. Qui peut les aider le mieux pour cela ? Les USA, la Grande Bretagne et leurs alliés démocratiques, ou l'ONU dont la majorité des membres ne croient pas en des élections libres ni en un gouvernement du peuple ?


E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com


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