Both U.S. policy-makers and commentators have been left reeling by the breadth and lightning speed of Iraq's April rebellion. Three things have been particularly crushing: the singular absence of any public Iraqi support for the United States during the stunning setbacks; the decision by the country's much-touted security forces to step aside or even join the insurgents as they took over a number of key cities; and the resignations, and an accusation of genocide in Fallujah, from members of the Iraqi Governing Council appointed by the United States.
In spite of those serious political and military problems for the United States, President George W. Bush reaffirmed on Tuesday that the White House will not divert from its established path in Iraq. "We will not step back from our pledge," he said during a news conference in Washington. "On June 30, Iraqi sovereignty will be placed in Iraqi hands."
The United States has repeatedly refused to allow elections for the government that is to run Iraq when it regains sovereignty on July 1. For the United States, dealing with an elected body that would forcefully challenge coalition policies and demand a real say in running the country would be a battle of endless embarrassments.
So the coalition has put democracy on hold until it can be safely managed. It is a disastrous policy. After the devastation of a war and an occupation whose only acceptable rationale - for Iraqis - was the promise of democracy, Iraqis will countenance nothing less.
By resisting a democratic solution, Paul Bremer, the U.S. proconsul in Iraq, has seriously undermined United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ali al-Sistani, the revered Grand Ayatollah who has helped keep Iraqi Shiites from taking up arms against the occupation. Iraqis and the international community depend on both these moderate leaders to help engineer a successful end to the occupation, which is ruining Iraq, adding to world instability and taking scores of lives every month.
That is not to take away from the central role in the uprising played by fresh coalition blunders, whose results undercut, once and for all, the official U.S. mantra that only a few Iraqis are opposed to the U.S. presence.
The latest missteps show how utterly out of touch the coalition is with the smouldering anti-occupation passions that the vast majority of Iraqis now harbour. That anger was bound to be ignited into a national firestorm by the U.S. decision to go after the young Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, even as a terrible collective punishment was being imposed on the city of Fallujah, which is controlled by Sunni insurgents.
The desecration of the bodies of Americans in Fallujah had revolted most Iraqis and Muslims. But the subsequent bombing of the city - which killed between 600 and 1,000 mostly civilian Iraqis - turned that revulsion into a new intensity of Iraqi and global Muslim wrath against the Americans.
But it was earlier, in January and February, that the Rubicon was crossed and the groundwork laid for the April rebellion. That was when Mr. Bremer refused the renewal by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of his long-standing, urgent demand for elections. In reply, the religious leader mobilized hundreds of thousands into the streets to support his election call.
The crisis was briefly defused when the Ayatollah turned to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to find a solution to the question of whether credible elections could be held by June 30, the date the United States had picked for the handover of sovereignty. With the help of one of the UN's most astute and trusted mediators, former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, Mr. Annan produced a report that concluded that the June 30 date should not be postponed, and that, therefore, there was not enough time to hold credible elections. Who knows what pressures the UN was under in making its deliberations? But its conclusion meant that the new Iraqi government would be picked under U.S. auspices.
Ayatollah al-Sistani and most of Iraq were astounded at having been so comprehensively undercut by the United Nations: The man who had been instrumental in restraining an open Shia revolt had been made to look powerless and unable to deliver on a cardinal issue.
On both the question of elections and a democratically written constitution, the United States has been on the wrong side of the equation. As a result, its actions undercut its own central claim that it fought this immensely costly war for Iraqis' freedom from tyranny. The basis for the current Shia revolt was, therefore, being steadily laid by such short-sighted, anti-democratic policies, as well as by the growing public refrain that the United States would need to station troops in Iraq for years in order to ensure that the country stayed on the "right" path.
Then Mr. Bremer initiated major new anti-Fallujah and anti-Sadr offensives simultaneously, uniting both Sunnis and Shiites in an anti-U.S. fury.
The damage that has been inflicted on the UN during these events is long-term, and will seriously hobble its ability to play the role of an honest broker between Iraqis; and between Iraq, the United States and the international community.
Credible arguments were marshalled to support the UN decisions in favour of the U.S. positions, but the crisis over elections that needed to be addressed was not technical but political. So the United Nations ended up intensifying the crisis it needed to resolve, appearing pro-U.S. again, and anti-Iraqi and anti-democratic to boot - a terrible mistake if the UN is to return to Iraq with any measure of credibility and, indeed, safety.
A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that the UN image has fallen to abysmally low levels in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and that it is vital that the organization correct its excessive U.S. tilt. It will only be able to do that if the United States itself recognizes that it cannot seek legitimacy from a UN undermined by the excessive U.S. pressure routinely placed on the Secretary-General and the institution itself.
Ending the Iraqi occupation is an essential first step to creating a stable and more secure world. No one would benefit more from such stability than the world's sole superpower.
At the moment, U.S. policy is built on needless confrontations - with Muslims in particular - which isolate it and expose it and its allies to real danger. Worldwide, the vast majority of Muslims are backing the Iraqi insurgency, in part because they feel that a U.S. defeat in Iraq would prevent the United States from attacking and occupying other Muslim countries. However, these same Muslims would warmly welcome an honourable U.S. exit from Iraq. The United States needs to reach out in a dramatic way to aggrieved Muslims; only the building of a positive relationship will undermine the roots of terrorism and build support for joint action against it.
Salim Lone was director of communications for the UN mission in Iraq headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello last year.
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