Will the Iraqis recognize the Governing Council? In short: Yes, they will — but only after the usual diplomatic and economic negotiations. The meeting between William Barnes, the US Assistant Secretary of State and the Secretary-General of the Arab League is just the beginning of the end of the delay.

Let us remember that this position developed only recently. Earlier the Arab League was adamant that it must participate in the rebuilding of Iraq after the war. Now, however, it has turned down America’s request for Arabs to participate with peacekeeping forces.

Compare what is happening in Monrovia with what is happening in Iraq or, more broadly, what is happening in Africa and what is happening in the Arab World. The Liberians went into the streets to welcome the Nigerian Army, which is the vanguard of the West African Nations’ forces, after the WAEU (West African Economic Union), of which Libya is a member, received international blessing for the deployment of troops in the country. Let us compare the Arab League’s failure to participate in peacekeeping in Iraq with African readiness to help save the lives of thousands of Liberians. Why this difference?

The Arab League was the first to insist that it should have a role to play in Iraq, one of its principal members. But it considers the Governing Council, which is made up of 25 representatives of the Iraqi people, to be provisional.

I believe that we must therefore wait and see. The Arab League has maneuvered itself into an untenable position, and it will eventually back down. Sooner or later it will deal with it as with a legitimate government. It will also agree to send Arab peacekeeping forces. But this will not happen until a number of wheels have been greased.

In the meantime, some people may feel that the Arab refusal to deal with the Governing Council is legitimate. Baghdad is officially and effectively under occupation by the American forces, and that occupation in itself is a legitimate reason for that refusal, especially since the Arabs opposed the war in the first place. Why should they therefore be pleased with its outcome?

Yet while this may be legally sound, we are dealing with a political situation that cannot be handled by legal circles in the Arab League. If lawyers rather than politicians have the final say, they must define for us what, according to the Arab League’s dictionary, is the definition of “legitimate”. Perhaps it is a fluid definition? If the Arabs remain stubborn on the point, this will merely give rise to a fruitless and no doubt Byzantine debate. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not legitimate either in the sense that there was no mandate from the Security Council. The US took action in spite of resistance from Russia, France and the UK. International law says that the rightful authority was Yugoslavia, that the creation of Bosnia was illegitimate and that changing the Serb governor in Kosovo was also illegal.

In such a regionally explosive crisis, the new political situation demands that we engage with Iraq in a pragmatic manner. The Arab League’s refusal to do so leaves the door open for forces hostile to the Arabs to do as they please in this huge Arab country, politically and militarily. Failure to go to Iraq and make the best of these new developments may be a huge political mistake for which we may have to pay dearly. The Iraqi Governing Council consists of an elite group of Iraqis, and to cast doubt on its legitimacy does not sit well with the current situation in much of the Arab world.

Let us remember that the Americans took the peculiarities of Iraq into account when they decided to form a governing council rather than govern it themselves. That decision in itself is worth supporting to help the Iraqis on the way to independence and full and free elections.

Arab News Opinion 16 August 2003