In Iraq, the First Order of Business Is Order

NEW YORK —  It would be a great triumph if the war waged by the United States and Britain laid the groundwork for democracy in Iraq. But it would be both ironic and tragic if an Anglo-American campaign failed to achieve Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of democracy because it failed to provide the more basic requirement identified by British philosopher Thomas Hobbes: security. The state’s primary responsibility, according to Hobbes, is to establish and maintain order, without which life would be “nasty, brutish and short.” In his view, liberty without order -- like coffee without water -- is impossible.

In Iraq, the fear that formed the foundation of Saddam Hussein’s despotism has evaporated. But it has been replaced by disorder, by looting and revenge killings. Such chaos prevents Iraqis from reassembling their lives. But it presents another problem as well: If the Iraqi people associate the advent of Americans with lawlessness and upheaval, it will be impossible for us to earn the trust and goodwill we need to help the Iraqis forge a legitimate and representative government. Why should they believe that we can shape a better future for their country if we cannot even manage the present?

Allowing disorder to disrupt the routines of daily life sends a message that no one is in charge. And such a message, given Iraq’s current instability, might well lead to a political scene dominated by private militias, self-appointed rulers, blood feuds and interference by intelligence agents from neighboring countries determined to shape Iraq’s course.

Already, Arabs have been forcibly expelled from Kurdish areas in northern Iraq (where Hussein settled them as part of his Arabization campaign). The struggle for power within the Shiite community is intensifying and has, in Najaf, culminated in gruesome murders. Freelancers have declared themselves mayors and governors. Iranian operatives roam Iraq’s Shiite cities. If these manifestations of anarchy gain momentum, Iraq will not be left whole, let alone democratic.

The passage from war to peace is never smooth and easy, and in Iraq the guns have not even ceased firing. Yet what’s happening is more than “untidiness,” as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld termed it, or a display of hatred for Hussein’s dictatorship: It’s mayhem. Mobs pillaged not just government offices and the sumptuous homes of the former leadership but also private shops, hospitals and the national museum and library. On occasion they have acted as judge and jury to punish members of the Baath Party and security services. Iraqis are joyful that Hussein is gone; destroying his statues and portraits has become a national pastime and an act of exorcism. Yet they now blame America for allowing bedlam to emerge; the euphoria of liberation is fast being superseded by disappointment and even hostility.

Although the unruliness has abated substantially now that there’s not much left worth stealing, there is still no plan for maintaining law and order over the long term. Given Iraq’s size and population -- it’s as large as California and has about as many people as Texas -- the 130,000 coalition forces deployed there cannot serve as both cops and soldiers, particularly while there are remaining pockets of resistance requiring military action. More American soldiers are arriving by the day, but even a bigger U.S. force is only a stopgap solution. Iraq is a complex urban society with many large cities, and our troops are trained for war, not to serve as police.

Americans, Britons and Iraqis have given their lives to dismantle Hussein’s house of horrors. Their sacrifice will be honored only if a democracy emerges from the rubble. Yet for that grand enterprise to have any chance of success, Iraq needs order and its people need the basic requirements for survival. Several steps must be taken to put these precursors to democracy in place:

* Internationalize the job. The leaders of Europe, Japan and the wealthy Arab countries must acknowledge that reestablishing order in Iraq and ensuring that people have basic necessities is an international obligation. Some nations have insisted that the obligation lies solely with the U.S. and Britain, because they launched the war. But responsibility for Iraq’s future must be shared. The Arab states must be involved because Iraq is their neighbor. Europe and Japan must play a role because they rely far more on Persian Gulf oil than do the U.S. and Britain. If ever there’s been a time for those who have denounced the Bush administration’s unilateralism to demonstrate the wonders of multilateralism, this is it. Supporting the termination of U.N. sanctions against Iraq would be an excellent opening move.

* Get the funding in place. The European Union and the oil-rich Arab states should immediately establish a fund for postwar Iraq that is administered by the U.N. (The U.S. will devote its own resources to stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq; the rest of the world should remember that Americans are already bracing to pay at least $20 billion a year over the next several years for those tasks.) The fund should finance the training of police forces from U.N. member states to take over routine police functions and start to work alongside American military units.

* Include the Arab states. The international police force should include Americans and Europeans, but it must also have an Arab component. True, police in much of the Arab world are hardly punctilious about civil liberties. But it would be politically obtuse to make an American and European constabulary responsible for keeping the peace in Iraq. Memories of colonialism are too fresh and fears of Western domination too strong.

* Give the U.N. a role. So that the international police force has legitimacy and is not seen as the instrument of any one state, the U.N. should be responsible for coordinating the recruitment of its personnel, using the global fund for Iraq to cover the expenses. The head of the force must, however, report to retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who heads the interim American civil authority in Iraq. It is not realistic or even wise to expect that the United States, having waged the war, will fade away when it comes to arranging the peace. Yet the far right’s reflexive animus toward the U.N. and multilateralism should not prevent us from expanding the roster of states and institutions involved in rebuilding Iraq. We don’t have the money to do it alone. And no matter our motives, the sheer magnitude of America’s power breeds fear and suspicion, particularly in the Arab world.

* Rebuild a local police force. A new Iraqi national police force and civilian militia should be created. Hussein’s security apparatus is not trusted by the Iraqi people -- it has killed and tortured too many of them -- and it won’t do to resurrect it after some top-level housecleaning. It’s understandable that the U.S. is recruiting police who served the old regime to help staunch the unrest, but if Iraq is to have a fresh start, the guardians of its order must inspire trust. That requires building a new Iraqi police force that understands and respects civil liberties and is unsullied by the past.

* Address humanitarian needs. The U.N. international fund should also be tapped to dispatch specialists with the training and experience to assess Iraq’s critical needs -- particularly food, water, shelter for refugees and medicine. Iraqis will welcome the stability an international police force can provide. But peace alone will not win their hearts unless steps are also taken -- preferably coordinated by the U.N. -- to alleviate their poverty and to prevent the outbreak of diseases caused by the lack of potable water, medicine and basic sanitation. These efforts should be supplemented with the work of private relief agencies.

This is not a heroic, soul-stirring agenda, to be sure. Missing is the vision of a democratic Iraq that, by sheer force of example, sweeps away the repressive, corrupt regimes dotting the Middle Eastern landscape and replaces them with elected, accountable, honest and efficient governments. The most ardent advocates of toppling Hussein predicted, in effect, that his ouster would make the Arab world the next proving ground for the inexorability of the “End of History.” They need not discard this wondrous and worthy, if somewhat naive, manifesto. But let us first make Iraq less “untidy” by fixing the basic problem identified by Hobbes. Then we can attempt the more ambitious project defined by Jefferson.