Bush Crawls Back to the UN

The Bush administration has so utterly failed in its handling of the Iraq war and the resulting, growing tensions in the region, that it has decided to cede diplomatic control to the UN.

After reviewing its Iraq policy last winter, the White House committed to boosting diplomatic efforts in the region. But Washington has failed to win significant new cooperation from any of the countries bordering Iraq -- Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey. In Egypt last week, Rice met with the "six plus two" nations, an informal alliance of the six sheikdoms in the Gulf Cooperation Council plus Egypt and Jordan, but the only tangible result was a Saudi offer to explore opening an embassy in Baghdad.

"Regional diplomacy has turned out to be only lip service," said Chas Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "We have failed to create circumstances for political reconciliation and unity in Iraq. And we have not taken the next step to engage with Iraq's neighbors to support a process that produces that result."

U.S. efforts to directly enlist Iranian support in Iraq have also suffered setbacks. Since May, Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, has twice held formal talks with Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi in Baghdad, but State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday that this new dialogue -- the first public contact between the two nations in 28 years -- has so far yielded no positive results.

The new resolution passed on Thursday would see the UN not only taking on a larger humanitarian presence in Iraq but would have that body try to clean up the diplomatic mess that Bushco has made due to its view of itself as the prime architect of reshaping the region in its own image:

After the 2003 invasion, many of Iraq's neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, called for a regional forum under U.S. or U.N. auspices. But Washington did not want to legitimize Tehran and Damascus by engaging in diplomatic talks, Arab officials said. More recently, the Bush administration has sought to tap regional assistance and resources, they added, but with too little credibility and limited time left in Bush's term to meet critical goals.

The Bush administration took the same stubborn, non-negotiating course with North Korea until that country finally retaliated by testing a long range missile last summer to get some attention. Then suddenly, US/North Korean talks were back on. This is a clan of neocons that seems to prefer crises to steady and direct diplomacy. That's "hard work", apparently.

After sending Colin Powell to lie to the UN Security Council about Iraq's so-called WMD and the ridiculous notion that unleashing John "bull in a china shop" Bolton to the UN to try to strong arm the institution to do what the neocons wanted both failed, it's quite something to see Bushco finally surrendering to the UN. However, there are always at least two sides to situations like this. Bushco may see this handover of power to the UN negotiators as a way to escape ultimate responsibility for what does happen in Iraq, Iran and beyond - which to me is the more likely reason for relinquishing control.