News Tip: U.S. Faces Challenges in Post-War Iraq, Professors Say
The U.S. will have to proceed carefully to ensure that the new Iraqi government is seen as legitimate, according to Duke international relations experts
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
With news reports indicating that Saddam Husseinâs regime is increasingly closer to collapse, Duke University faculty say establishing a new government in Iraq will be among the United Statesâ most challenging endeavors in the foreseeable future.
"The UN cannot ârun Iraq,â as French President Jacque Chirac claims, but it needs to be progressively more involved," says political scientist Robert O. Keohane, a leading international relations scholar. "If the U.S. handpicks the Iraqis or carries out the purges of the alleged Baath supporters itself, the process wonât be legitimate. And prolonged U.S. military rule would be disastrous in the Arab world and Iraq.
"Also, the disposition of the oil revenues has to be entirely for the benefit of Iraqis, and the process has to be entirely transparent," says Keohane, past president of the American Political Science Association and author of "After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy" (winner of the 1989 Grawemeyer Award in 1989 for Ideas Improving World Order). "We need extensive cooperation between the U.S.-U.K. and the UN, with a gradual transition first toward UN administration (as in Bosnia and Kosovo), then toward Iraqi self-rule."
Keohane is available for interviews on Wednesday between 3 and 3:30 at (919) 660-4322, and from 5:45 to 7:30 p.m. at (919) 684-7737, or by e-mail at rkeohane@acpub.duke.edu.
Bruce Kuniholm, professor of history and public policy studies who has worked on the U.S. Department of Stateâs Bureau of Intelligence and Research and Policy Planning Staff, calls the rebuilding of Iraq "among the most challenging ventures upon which the allied coalition in Iraq will embark in the coming decade. The stakes are no less than the standing of the coalition countries in the world community."
Kuniholm, who has researched diplomatic history and U.S. foreign policy in the Near and Middle East, said the world will be watching to see if the United States "follows through on earlier promises, and whether the Bush administration is willing to tackle the complex but nonetheless important problems associated with the Palestinian-Israeli impasse."
"The United States cannot succeed in its goals alone, as it cannot be successful in the war on terrorism without the multilateral support of many allies. The manner in which it approaches problems in Iraq will help to determine how and in what context it will be able to deal with other problems -- whether in the Middle East or Korea -- and the extent to which it sees itself as an imperium or as an important member of the United Nations and the international community."
Kuniholm, who has served as a consultant for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, can be reached at (919) 613-7341, or by email at bruce.kuniholm@duke.edu.
Ole Holsti, professor of political science and expert in foreign-policy decision-making, said a key challenge will be to establish a government that goes beyond the Sunni minority that has been the core of the Baath Party.
"Various proposals have been floating around in Washington; for example, a federal system with a good deal of devolution of power to the Shiites (about 60 percent of the population) in the south and the Kurds (about 20 percent) in the north. One step that should be avoided is to bring in exiles and attempt to place them in power. It is hard to see how any of them, imposed by the U.S., will have much credibility," said Holsti, author of "Crisis, Escalation, War: Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities" and "Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy."
"But above all, there must be no replay of Afghanistan, from which we bailed out under the first Bush, and where it is not yet clear that we will be in for the long run," Holsti added. "It may not take 5 or so years, as in Germany and Japan after WWII, but if there is any hope for a stable, democratic Iraq to emerge in the post-Saddam era, it won't come on the cheap."
Holsti can be reached at (919) 660-4348 or (919) 942-4232.
A list of Duke experts on Iraq can be found at http://dukenews.duke.edu/iraq_experts.asp.
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