Allan Topol is a partner in a large Washington-based international law firm. He has a science and engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon, and a law degree from Yale University. For almost 40 years, he has been involved in issues at the height of the Washington power structure.
He is also a national bestselling novelist, using the thriller genre to explore international geopolitical and military issues. His 2001 novel, SPY DANCE, is about a former CIA agent on the run and Saudi Arabian oil. His 2003 novel, DARK AMBITION, deals with the corruption of power in Washington and China's threatening posture toward Taiwan. In January 2004, his new novel CONSPIRACY was released dealing with a foreign leader's attempt to influence an American presidential election and the possibility of renewed militarism in Japan.
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The faint hope that the United States' situation in Iraq will become easier after the transitional government comes into existence on June 30 is fading. The American decisionmakers for the occupation, Paul Bremer in Iraq and those he consults with in Washington, have badly stumbled since the end of a very successful war. On June 30, they will drop off a cliff into a virtual freefall.
In concept, the idea seems like a good one. On June 30th create a transitional government for Iraq which will remain in power until elections next year. But this is the Middle East. Nothing ever goes according to plan.
The first issue to surface is who will appoint the members of this transitional government? The United States' view for many months after the war was: of course we will appoint them. Gradually, the realization hit home that anyone the United States selected would be viewed by many Iraqis as puppets and lackeys of Washington, depriving them of any credibility. So that idea was abandoned.
A desperate situation requires desperate measures. The U.N., which has been viewed as the plague, and often rightly so by the Bush Administration, was invited to the party. Now Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.'s envoy in Iraq, who is openly hostile to the United States, has been given the job of picking the interim Iraqi leadership.
After the assassination on May 17 of Ezzedine Salim, the President of the Iraqi Governing Council, his task has become more difficult. Some who may have been tempted to serve will now reconsider, which was one objective of the assassination. Those who are in fact appointed will face a daily task of just staying alive. There is no doubt that the insurgents, anxious to block the return to normalcy, will target all members of the transition government for death.
Should Brahimi manage to get a transitional government in place, the fun will begin. Nobody has defined what powers this interim government will have. A top administration policymaker said, "these Iraqis will have to determine themselves what powers they should have."
The obvious issue is: what do we do if they ask all American troops to leave Iraq immediately, even though there is enormous instability in the country? That may not be a rational decision, but nationalism often trumps rationality. Secretary of State Powell has said that of course we'll comply. Pentagon officials are taking a contrary view. They would like to dismiss any interim Iraqi government which takes that position, like British kings dispensed with parliament.
Alternatively, two issues arise if we stay. First, who will control the rag tag Iraqi armed forces we are creating? Decisions must be made ordering those troops into battle in specific areas. "Retake Najaf." "Invade Fallujah." "Attack the mosque." Suppose a U.S. military commander gives the Iraqis these orders. Will the interim government be able to determine whether or not there should be compliance? If so, then the United States will have lost military control in the country.
Second, if the Shiites gain a majority in the transitional government, which they might since they are sixty percent of the population, they may enact fundamentalist Islamic law for certain family matters. Will American soldiers stand by and watch the stoning of adulterous women?
Then there is the really tough issue. What happens to Saddam Hussein in this morass? Suppose the Shiite majority wants to summarily execute him. Do we turn him over? Suppose the Sunnis, who still regard him as a hero, gain the upper hand in the transitional government and demand that we release him.
Even if neither of these alternatives are selected in connection with the fate of Saddam, who will try him in any event? An Iraqi court? An American court? An international court?
Justice is a double edge sword. Suppose the Iraqi transitional government wants to try Americans for prisoner abuse, arguing that it's their country, they should have the right. What do we do then?
These are only some of the complex issues that are certain to surface in the months after June 30. There is no consensus among Paul Bremer and decisionmakers in Washington as to what the answers should be. Six weeks before June 30, our game plan seems to be that we don't have a game plan.
There is still a good chance that we will succeed in creating stability in Iraq, although it may not be the liberal democracy we hoped for. Surely the costs of failure are too horrible to contemplate. But in order to succeed, now is the time for facing the hard questions certain to arise in the days after June 30.
