Why US treads rough road toward UN backing in Iraq

As world leaders debate a new United Nations resolution that could bring more countries into security and rebuilding tasks in Iraq, much of the talk is of what's best for the Iraqi people.

But underlying the discussions are conflicting national interests and concerns about setting precedents in international affairs that are leaving interest in the US-sought resolution only lukewarm.

"What we're witnessing is a struggle for power," says James Lindsay, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "The US wants to retain control of the Iraqi operation while sharing the burdens, while the others aren't sure how much they want to get involved, especially if it means placing a UN imprimatur on an action many of them opposed."

The discussions, which shifted to Geneva last weekend at a summit of the UN Security Council's five permanent members, return to New York as the UN's annual General Assembly gets under way this week. President Bush - who last year challenged the international body to remain "relevant" to international security affairs by taking on Iraq - is scheduled to address the General Assembly at its opening session next Tuesday. Some countries hope the Iraq resolution can be settled by then.

But negotiations are hitting rough waters. For many countries they are about much more than simply helping Iraq. For anyone with a memory of the prewar diplomatic wranglings over Iraq, that might sound familiar.

To the extent the current negotiations are focused on the exercise and limits of American power, they resemble the winter and spring debate, which for many countries ended up being more about the US - and what message it might take from a "yes" vote in the Security Council on war - than about Iraq itself.

That is true again, some analysts say, though perhaps with a key postwar difference.

"The resentment against American unilateralism is no different today, but what's new is the evidence the US can't do it alone, it needs the international community to get Iraq right," says Hurst Hannum, an expert in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, part of Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

But Mr. Hannum, who just returned from work in India - a traditional participant in peacekeeping forces that the US would like to see send troops to Iraq - says the nations being wooed are not seeing the changed US approach that would make them eager to sign on.

"I get the sense that countries are avoiding the temptation to say 'I told you so' to the US about Iraq, they're looking at things now and they realize no one has an interest in seeing the situation get worse. The world looks willing to help," he adds, "but not under the conditions the US is trying to impose."

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