Versione italianaDear friends, dear colleagues,
A few weeks ago I went to Iraq with a delegation of Socialist International.
We were invited to Baghdad by the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and in the three days we were there we met up with representatives of numerous organisations and political movements that had opposed the Iraqi regime.
War – all wars – leave tangible scars on the countries they hit. Baghdad is no exception and shows clear traces of warfare.
But today, almost three months after the end of the bombing, it is not the material damage that strikes visitors to Iraq. It is the climate of this post- war phase.
It is the fact that most of the hopes that preceded the arrival of the allied forces – expectations of successful democracy-building processes for the nation and its stability after years of dictatorship – have not yet materialised.
On the contrary, some of the people - and there are a great number of them – who greeted the Anglo-American coalition forces as liberators, are losing heart. Fears and uncertainties concerning the post-war phase are growing. A feeling of insecurity is spreading, a sensation that is bound to last a long time.
And on the other hand, it is no coincidence – or it is only the outcome of isolated incidents - that the number of American and British troupes killed in the post-war period may become higher than the number of soldiers killed in action.
Primarily, this wide-ranging feeling confirms a well known fact. The decision to use weapons to export democracy is always a risky business and it outcome is uncertain.
There must be broad based consent before an area, a region, a country can be turned into a democracy. The people must agree on and share the desire to bring about democracy-building processes. Without this supporting framework, the occupation of a nation - especially when international law does not clearly uphold the occupation - is a dangerous business for occupying nations and occupants alike.
The point is that military supremacy alone is not enough to enforce stable, real, and lasting peace. And this was plainly predicted by very many observers prior to, and during the course of, the coalition forces attack on Iraq.
This is one of the reasons why I, personally, was, and still am, against military action in Iraq.
Nonetheless, obviously the issue in question today is not military intervention. It is how to get out of such a complex and uncertain situation and speed up the democracy-building process by directly involving the United Nations in the running of the post Saddam period.
It is not only that. It is how to re-establish the supremacy of political responsibility since it has been seen that military action alone, no matter how sophisticated, cannot resolve the complex issue of running the country that is torn by new balances of power that have sprung up in the aftermath of the conflict.
In this respect, I do not feel that the ones who wanted and waged this war should be left alone to take on the consequences.
In the contrary, I believe that the international community should guarantee Iraq a “soft” transition period in order to prevent the country from backsliding towards possible fundamentalism in such a delicate phase.
This means that the process to establish an Iraqi Interim Authority including representatives of all Iraqi citizens must be speeded up. A Constitution that respects the existing cultural, ethnic and religious differences must be drawn up, and steps must be taken to start up once again the taxing task of establishing peace and unity in Iraq after decades of systematic repression.
In this respect, I must admit I was somewhat embarrassed during our recent visit to Iraq when some Iraqi interlocutors addressed me by saying “You are right; war is always ugly. But what did you Europeans do in the past to liberate us from Saddam Hussein? What actions did you take to stop the bloody regime from persecuting the Kurdish minority and killing thousands of defenceless civilians? ”
No members of the Left worthy of its name can sidestep these questions. Neither can they pretend that the issue does not concern them.
The truth is that the problem exists.
Even for those like us who believe that war is the last resort to be used, and if employed to be wielded with extreme caution. For those whom, today more than ever, realize that by building democracies and establishing human rights and individual freedoms civilizations can reach a turning point.
I personally believe - and have done so for a long time – that the use of force cannot be ruled out either in principle or in practice when tackling this problem.
Again and again over the years I have recalled the decisions of the Italian government when I was prime minister, to support, without hesitation, the armed intervention in Kosovo.
What’s more, at that time I admired the United States for having shaken Europe out of a state of inertia concerning the terrible tragedy that was happening just over the Italian border and that had brought the brutality of war back into the heart of Europe.
But please let me remind you that the overall picture of that issue was totally different from the framework that preceded the military attack on Iraq.
An attack against a civilian population was in swing in Kosovo. An army – the Serbian army - had invaded an autonomous region and started up yet another episode of ethnic cleansing – bloody warfare that had devastated the Balkans for almost a decade.
At that time Europe and the international community was facing a dramatic scenario creating a humanitarian emergency. Thousands and thousands of desperate people fled into the mountains in a mass exodus that jeopardised their survival and our security.
But that’s not all. The juridical picture of the crisis was different, too.
First and foremost, faced with such a far reaching tragedy Europe had declared it was ready to take action. Also the leaders of NATO, an organisation created to maintain and guarantee security in Europe, urged for decisive action to be taken.
Therefore, intervention in Kosovo was backed by the institutions that had been involved. Not by a single nation, nor an alliance of nations, but by super-national institutions and organisations. And so it is clear that the situation was completely different from the juridical scenario that accompanied military intervention against Iraq.
It is clear that the background facts of the two scenarios were totally different. The complex Kosovo represented a real danger and engendered a humanitarian emergency, and our actions fully respected international laws.
The use of discretion seems unacceptable. The possibility of military action undertaken outside the framework of rules and procedures that today regulate international law.
I repeat. In some cases the question is not whether the use of force is acceptable. The core issue is the patient, laborious yet unassailable task of building a governance founded on recognised and respected institutions. And not at the discretion of few major world powers.
This principle should be firm and unwavering, no matter what. And it reaches far beyond the polemics on the lack of clear proof of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, that, according to the Anglo-American point of view, justified the rush to attack Iraq.
It is evident that the decision to advance binding rules and super-national organisations is also a way of neutralising the unacceptable theory of preventive war. Such an approach does not grant any nation – no matter how powerful – the right to decide alone, in line with its own unilateral judgement, where and where not to intervene.
In this sense a multilateral vision of international relations is the only way to safeguard against the idea that humanitarian intervention can justify the goal of exporting models of civilisation. To put it more clearly, to prevent the danger of a stepwise strategy that can gradually be extended to other countries once the Iraq issue is over.
Such a vision of the world and globalisation is unrealistic. What’s more it does not give a convincing answer to the problems of security that faced the West and our culture after the tragedy of September 11th .
I say this because if there is a lesson to be learnt from that tragic day, it is the close connection between the desire to achieve a new international security and the prospect of a shared governance.
Therefore, first and foremost we have to build a joint and shared idea of “security”. But the meaning of the concept has to be extended beyond the confines of only our societies before this can be achieved.
Today, no-one denies that the Western nations represent the core of an “international community”, in the sense they share core values, cultural roots, political and economic strategies.
The point to work on though is the fact that this “international community” has not become a “global community” yet, because other areas of the world have different values, priorities and strategies.
Without an “international society”, without a framework of basic rules and principles for peaceful coexistence and representation, it is hard to imagine that security can be regulated and controlled on a world scale.
I would like to add that if we feel we can get round this barrier by exporting our political and social model using all the ways, even the most unprincipled, provided by globalisation, the operation is doomed to fail.
The opposite holds for the approach aimed at spreading democracy founded on the principles of multilateralism, of strong, influential, legitimate and universally acknowledged super-national institutions able to support peaceful coexistence and mutual recognition of cultural models and societies that have little in common.
This – I believe – is the only way to create an effective, progressive common network of shared individual rights that will not be swayed by political contingencies and tactical convenience.
We are fully aware that its achievement is by no means a forgone conclusion.
It will be a tough and tiring battle. But it is the only alternative to chaos or the re-establishment of power politics.
Hence, international security is more and more subject to change, a restrictive change in the sovereignty of single States. The real challenge is to set up institutions able to take on the weight and responsibility of shared governance as this change is made.
It is evident that the future of peaceful coexistence depends on this - on successfully creating a multilateral vision of international relations.
I am deeply convinced that in this perspective the socialist movement and the international progressive left have to provide core ideas, values and strategies.
I believe this is our real mission for the future. This is what will epitomise our purpose and role in the world in the years to come.
