The coverage of the news about James Baker the Bush family fixer coming in this week to help clean up the Iraq mess reminded me of something that's been bothering me. The American commentary on this seems to be suffering from some of the same arrogance that got us into this mess. Everyone seems to think that we, the United States, have the power to make what we want happen in Iraq.
Billmon recently commented that the conventional wisdom in Washington is that Baker will be able to "work miracles." I'm sure he's right about the expectations. But the miracles aren't very likely.
Billmon raises an important point. The United States is the legal occupier of Iraq. Now, given the explicit contempt that both Bush and Rummy have publicly expressed for international law, that fact in itself wouldn't mean much. If they thought it was otherwise politically expedient, they would be willing to walk away from the disaster they've created in Iraq.
But part of what it means is that the occupying power is responsible for the debts of the occupied country. Billmon's figures have them at around $150 billion. And, he asks, wouldn't we have to get recognition for the full sovereignty of new Iraqi government from, say, the United Nations Security Council - the body that we asked to legally designate the US as the occupying power - before the debt obligations could be resolved?
Now, any good Republican hawk would be glad to tell you what those creditors can do with their expectations of getting paid back. But Bush recently had to back off his steel tariffs, because the European Union got a World Trade Organization ruling that they violated our international trade agreements. The EU threatened economic retaliation targeted at key 2004 electoral battleground states. Bush backed down. Gave up. Laid down his cards. I guess trade sanctions can work sometimes. Even the threat of trade sanctions.
So maybe Bush shouldn't be sneering at international law so carelessly. And all of us need to realize that there is a lot out of our control in the Iraq situation.
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