Posted on: Friday, March 21, 2003

EDITORIAL
Postwar rebuilding must start right now

The earliest collateral damage from the new war in Iraq might not be in Iraq at all. It is the tatters of the splendid post-World War II international architecture that includes the Atlantic alliance, the European Union and the United Nations.

It is a mistake to suppose that because these organizations didn't sign on enthusiastically for the war effort that they are now irrelevant, at least to the interests of the United States.

To the contrary, the shorter the war to topple Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the sooner we will need the help of the U.N. and NATO in undertaking the unprecedented and daunting task of building a stable, democratic state in its place.

Moreover, the burning issue of North Korean nuclear development has been thrust by President Bush into the lap of the very same Security Council he so recently disparaged.

There's more than enough blame to go around, on both sides of the Atlantic, in assessing the cause of this wreckage. More patient and active diplomacy on Washington's part might eventually have achieved decisive unanimity in the Security Council, which might well have brought regime change to Iraq without firing a shot.

Bush thus failed to argue the French away from their objection that the United States had failed to make a convincing case for the necessity for war at this moment and in this manner.

But the true concern of French President Jacques Chirac was not Iraq but America as the sole superpower. His diplomatic failure was declining to partner with Washington, trading his cooperation for a more comfortable approach to the Iraq problem — instead of attempting to form an ungainly opposing axis with Germany, Russia and China.

Good relations between Washington and all four of these nations is not optional. Neither is restoration of health to the U.N. and NATO.

On the same day that the United States invaded Iraq, the 15 leaders of the European Union gathered in Brussels to discuss how to restore unity between themselves and Washington — even to the point of offering to participate in Iraq's post-war reconstruction.

While our nation is understandably absorbed in pursuit of war, that spirit of reconciliation and rebuilding is needed right now — in Washington and across the country.