The attack on Iraq by the United States officially signalled the end of the post-Cold War era. This war is not only about the ''remaking'' of the modern Middle East, but also about the ''unmaking'' of international institutions and global partnerships. It is a defining moment.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, many were optimistic that international institutions and multilateral alliances could cope with the new challenges. This residual optimism has now collapsed. The war has paralyzed the United Nations, fragmented the European Union, and transformed the trans-Atlantic relationship into an Anglo-Saxon partnership, with Canada standing outside for the first time in its history. Everywhere, cracks in the foundations of existing institutions are visible. Can they be repaired?
Some in Washington question whether they should be repaired. The Bush administration vigorously asserts the primacy of the United States and its right to unilaterally protect its security as it sees fit. Distrust of international institutions has deepened as a result of the divisive debate at the Security Council. Fury at disloyal allies is at a fever pitch even as confidence in the continuing military supremacy of the United States grows. Influential voices applaud President George W. Bush for walking away from the dysfunctional United Nations and "old Europe" and urge him not to go back. The United Nations can be left to decline into irrelevance and NATO can become a regional collective security organization in Europe. Washington will turn its attention elsewhere and establish coalitions of the willing as it sees fit. The United States, a country at war, will liberate itself from the constraints of the weak.
Such a world is certainly possible. The next decade could well be one of the unilateral exercise of force by the United States, and the marginalization of the international institutions that it helped to build over the past half century. It is a world that will provide cold comfort to those who do not provide unquestioning support to the United States.
This, of course, is a nightmare world for Canada. No grand bargain that Canada could make with the United States, no common security perimeter, can turn this nightmare into a dream world of free-flowing trade and commerce. As the consequences of a relentlessly unilateral United States ripple out and flow back -- or blow back -- Washington will always want a thicker border that it can reinforce at times of heightened insecurity. The increased border patrols along the Mexican-American and Canadian-American borders this past week are a glimpse of a future where the United States flexes its muscles globally, openly displays its contempt for multilateral institutions, and reinforces its borders to protect its homeland.
A second world is also possible. Some in Washington acknowledge that while the United States may win the war, it cannot reconstruct the peace alone. It needs partners, not only to help with the reconstruction of Iraq, but also to continue the struggle against global networks of terror. Even a hyperpower cannot by itself guarantee its security in a connected world with interdependent economies and integrated communication and information systems. The United States will have to step back from the brink and swallow some of its anger.
It is not only the United States that will have to pull back. Friends and allies, also angry and frustrated, will have to search actively for ways to co-operate with the United States as soon as the fighting dies down. They will have to do so within the framework of multilateral institutions if they hope to paper over the cracks that have appeared in these last tense weeks. No country has a greater stake in doing so than Canada.
The first test of which of these two worlds will prevail is already at hand. Without a mandate from the Security Council, the United Nations cannot begin to help with the reconstruction of postwar Iraq. Even its capacity to help refugees and co-ordinate emergency assistance will be hobbled unless it can reach some agreement with the United States. At the summit of the European Union last week, France vigorously voiced its opposition to any resolution that would recognize a special role for the United Kingdom and the United States, even on an interim basis. President Jacques Chirac would rather keep the UN out of Iraq completely than reach an accommodation that forces the UN to work within a framework created by Washington. Some non-governmental organizations feel very much the same way. The United States and Britain, they say, are legally the occupying powers and bear full responsibility for the safety and well-being of the civilian population. Let them fulfill that responsibility, alone.
This kind of angry reasoning, justified in principled legal language, guarantees the further marginalization of the UN. It further deepens the unilateral tendencies in the United States; Washington has already begun to contract out responsibility for postwar reconstruction to American companies. If need be, the United States can and will do it alone. In all likelihood, a go-it-alone policy guarantees failure in Iraq; political reconstruction cannot succeed in the shadow of a visible unilateral American occupation.
Allies and partners will also have to pull back from the brink if they want to avoid the nightmare world. Here, Canada has an opportunity to try again. We can urge members of the Security Council to come back to the table and reach consensus on a resolution for the United Nations to participate actively in human-
itarian assistance and reconstruction in Iraq. Financial and legal obstacles will have to be overcome, principles will inevitably have to be compromised, and pique will have to be swallowed. If they are not, we have collectively taken one more step to deepen the cracks in the foundations of all our international institutions.
Janice Gross Stein is Belzberg professor of conflict management and director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. She has recently been appointed a Trudeau fellow.
