Nearly a month after U.S. warplanes opened the war against Iraq on March 19, President George Bush yesterday publicly affirmed the result: "the regime of Saddam Hussein is no more."
The focus of the U.S.-led coalition and of ordinary Iraqis has now shifted away from how the war will end to a new question: What comes next?
The Short Term
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has placed retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner in charge of the interim government. Garner, who has spent the last several years working for defense contractor SYColeman, was involved in setting up the relatively successful civil government in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.
Leaders from around Iraq met Garner yesterday in the ancient city of Ur, birthplace of biblical patriarch Abraham, to begin discussing Iraq's future. The meeting ended with an agreement by show of hands to meet again in 10 days.
The luster of the meeting was somewhat dimmed by the absence of many Shiite representatives in protest of a U.S.-controlled interim government. Thousands of Shiite protestors rallied at a nearby air base in support of the boycott.
"Iraq needs an Iraqi-interim government." Abdid Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, Iraq's largest Shiite group, said in Iran. "Anything other than this tramples the rights of the Iraqi people and will be a return to the era of colonization."
However, as joint Iraqi and U.S. patrols continued restoring order in Baghdad, Garner expressed optimism. "I don't think they had a love-in when they had in Philadelphia" in 1787, Garner told The New York Times correspondent Jane Perlez. "Whenever you start the process it's fraught with dialogue, tensions, coercion, and it should be."
Questions about U.N. involvement over the next few months remained unclear. While President Bush has guaranteed that the United Nations will play a vital part in rebuilding Iraq, he has defined that role as mainly limited to providing food, aid and medicine. However, the debate is far from settled.
In a recent interview with The Dartmouth, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and Ambassador to Germany under the previous Bush Administration Rob Kimmitt suggested that the United States may do well to seek help from its European partners in restoring order to Iraq.
"We [the U.S.] have support for fighting and winning wars. That support starts to drop off when we get in to peacekeeping and nation-building," Kimmitt said.
"Interestingly, the Germans don't have much support for fighting and winning wars, but as shown in the Balkans, Kosovo and Afghanistan, they've got public support for committing their troops for peacekeeping and nation-building."
Kimmit stressed that working through NATO or the United Nations may be difficult because of France's "un-cola" foreign policy that is often at odds with U.S. interests.
In their first communication since hostilities in Iraq began, President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac spoke on the phone yesterday. Chirac said the conversation was "positive" while White House spokesman Ari Fleischer pointedly described it as merely "business-like." Nonetheless, it marked an important effort to repair the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Iraq's Economic Prospects
While Iraq's future hinges on the ability of U.S. and Iraqi authorities to maintain order and form a functioning post-war government, many have begun discussing Iraq's more long term prospects.
Economic experts say Iraq's oil deposits make its chances for success greater than that of other nations. "They have a fair amount of resources," Dartmouth Economics Professor Jim Feyrer said. "It's not Afghanistan."
On Sunday, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund announced they would send teams to Iraq to assess the country's basic needs. Both the World Bank and the IMF are organizations that lend money to nations in need of large infusions of capital.
Dartmouth economics professor Eric Edmonds asserted that little is known about Iraq's needs, as outside observers have had little access to the country for over a decade. "We have no idea about the extent of poverty or the distribution of existing resources. We have very little knowledge of the infrastructure that's in place," Edmonds said.
"We see guesses in the newspaper that it's going to cost $60 billion to rebuild Iraq. That's made up," Edmonds said. Until U.S. and international leaders decide what level of services and infrastructure will be restored to Iraq, estimates of cost will be difficult to make.
Another question that remains unanswered is what to do with Iraq's debt, estimated at around $62 billion. Harvard economics professor Michael Kremer has advanced the idea of excusing "odious debts" incurred by repressive regimes when they are overturned. Russia and France, with large unpaid contracts from the deposed Iraqi regime, are among the most vocal opponents to such a plan.
Finally, Edmonds raised concerns that aid will be diverted from other countries in the effort to rebuild Iraq. "A lot of development projects in Africa have now been cancelled ... It's possible that that's actually where the significant collateral damage will end up being."
Implications for American Foreign Policy
War and peace studies coordinator professor Ronald Edsforth believes that the war in Iraq's conclusion marks the biggest shift in American foreign policy since the late 1940s.
"The relative ease with which the United States has conquered Iraq will lead those in the Bush administration to believe that they can conduct these types of wars in the future," Edsforth said, adding that the containment policy of the last 50 years has now been replaced by one of preemption.
Bush administration officials tout the operation's relative success as proof of America's military superiority and the viability of its aggressive policy. "The outcome is in the process speaking for itself," Rumsfeld said.
Edsforth expressed deep reservations about the administration's efforts to "make war easier" for the public to swallow. "I think the fact that the American public has accepted over 100 American deaths and has not asked how many have been wounded is a victory for the administration."
Edsforth also remarked that the United Nation's significance in world affairs has been damaged in the war's wake. "The implication is a return to a might-makes-right international arena," Edsforth said.
While pundits agree that the United Nation's credibility has suffered, they continue to argue about whether or not this a good thing. Most notably, Rumsfeld advisor Richard Perle published an article in March 21's The Guardian (London) entitled "Thank God for the Death of the U.N."
