Help: America Asking for Assistance

The US Senate has unanimously demanded that President Bush should consider appealing to the UN and NATO for assistance in peace settlement in Iraq
What is going on? Where is Rumsfeld who was so touched when the US tanks entered the streets of Baghdad? Where is his deputy Paul Wolfowitz who was persuading the people that presence of the US military in Iraq was obligatory? Why are US Administration officials silent, while they some time ago said the UN should carry out only humanitarian actions? Why has the USA suddenly recollected about the UN? May it be so that the situation in Iraq is so problematic that the USA is ready to ask for help? 

The US Senate has unanimously demanded that President Bush should consider appealing to the UN and NATO for assistance in peace settlement in Iraq. A resolution on Iraq adopted by the Senate of the US Congress on Thursday evening says that Iraq still poses a serious threat to the US troops. It is emphasized that rebuilding of Iraq will require tens of billions of dollars within the nearest months.

Russia's news agency RIA Novosti reports the Senate stated in the resolution that the US president should consider calling on the United Nations to urge members of the organization to provide military forces, police and other resources to help rebuild and administer Iraq. Senators think that President Bush should "formally and expeditiously" consider appealing to NATO with the same request. The resolution adopted by the Senate says, main objective of the USA is to ensure a peaceful, stable and unified Iraq; for this purpose the US Administration must appeal to the world community for help.

Does it mean that realization of this objective is impossible without assistance of international organizations?

Indeed, it is awkward to mention that Washington disregarded the opinion of majority of UN members when it was launching the Iraqi campaign. The disregard was so obvious that following the USA many other countries started speaking about the necessity to transform the UN. It was stated at that, the world had seriously changed after WWII, and the international relations radically transformed also.

It is no doubt, the world has changed indeed. To tell the truth, there is hardly an organization or a country that may substitute the UN for a "transformation" period. If some country claims to this role, it still has little opportunities, as military superiority is not the only decisive factor in this situation.

Now we observe a really interesting situation. At first, the USA pressed the UN for a resolution authorizing an armed incursion into Iraq. As the USA failed to obtain such a resolution, it was decided to go ahead without any resolution from the UN at all. The result of it was rather impressive. Now it turns out that US servicemen still die in Iraq; what is more, the USA has to spend billions of dollars on maintenance of the troops in Iraq and on rebuilding of the country. Now the USA is going to press the UN for money and military assistance in Iraq. It may happen so that opponents of the war in Iraq (France and Germany first of all) will have to loosen the purse-strings and send the troops to Iraq. At that, French and German soldiers may be stationed at a place where currently US troops are fired upon several times a day. The countries will have to send the troops to Iraq in the framework of assistance to the alliance member. Now Washington asks itself a question: is it alone that must care about ensuring peaceful, stable and unified Iraq?    

Yesterday Deutsche Welle radio reported that France and Germany refused to fulfill America's request and send troops to Iraq. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and an official spokesperson for the German defense ministry said that both countries might send the troops to Iraq only in the framework of a UN mandate on sending peacemaking forces to the country. The other day US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said it might be good if other countries also sent soldiers to Iraq for stabilization of the situation there; in this connection he mentioned Germany and France, the strong opponents to war in Iraq. Rumsfeld said he had to suggest the initiative because of too high spending on the operation. In his words, US taxpayers have to pay $4 billion every month especially for the operation.