A DISHONEST RESOLUTION

by RAY FLEMING
A further 24 hours in which to examine the resolution on Iraq put to the UN Security Council on Friday by Britain, Spain and the United States has not led me to change the initial views I expressed about it in my Looking Around column in this paper yesterday. Indeed, if anything, my negative reactions have been strengthened by further study of the provisions of the resolution. Essentially the United Nations is being asked to endorse the role of absolute ruler of Iraq to which the United States has appointed itself. Although Britain is theoretically the US's equal partner its influence is clearly limited. This is borne out by the failure of Mr Blair to achieve for the United Nations anything remotely resembling the “vital role” which he publicly said it should have at the Azores and Belfast summits. Although the resolution contains a reference to this “vital role” the tasks outlined for the UN are routine and advisory and in no sense commensurate to the role which it should be given if the difficult and complex task of rebuilding Iraqi society is going to be undertaken in a way that will regarded as just and appropriate in the rest of the Middle East. Speaking about oil revenues on 20 March, Mr Blair told the House of Commons: “We shall...put the money from Iraqi oil in a United Nations trust fund so that it benefits Iraq and no one else.” However, the Iraqi Assistance Fund now proposed by the resolution to handle these revenues will not be a UN institution, it will merely have a UN representative on its board. Most significantly, the resolution notes that “the funds in the Iraqi Assistance Fund shall be disbursed at the direction of the Authority”. The Authority is the resolution's new name for the occupying powers, specifically Britain and the United States, but in reality the United States. The most significant development over Iraq in the last 48 hours has not been the tabling of this dishonest resolution at the United Nations, but the arrival in the Basra area of the Ayatollah Sayed Muhammad Baqr al–Hakim, the 63–year–old Shia leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who has been living in exile in Iran for the last twenty–three years after being expelled by Saddam Hussein. During the coming days, accompanied by thousands of his supporters, he will make his progress to the holy city of Najaf, the burial site of the grandson of the Prophet. For some Shias al–Hakim's return is to be compared with the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran after the Shah's downfall in 1979; for others, including those who owe allegiance to other Shia Ayatollahs, he has been absent for too long and has lost influence. The significance of al–Hakim's return is not whether he will prove to be the most influential of the Shia leaders but rather the reminder given by his reception after so long an absence gives of the fundamental and irreplaceable position of religion in the lives of the Iraqi people. The UN resolution tabled on Friday has a reference to the formation of a government that “affords equal rights and justice to all Iraqi citizens without regard to ehnicity, religion or gender.” Fine Western words, but are they remotely achievable in Iraq?