Quotes of the Day

When the shooting's over, who will run Iraq? In the long term, Iraqis. But in the short term, the answer is shaping up to be another awkward tussle between the U.S. and its allies. Most countries want the U.N. Security Council to be in charge. They say that if the occupation is run on behalf of the whole world rather than by Washington and London, it will appear more just — both to Iraqis, who might be tempted to undermine the new regime's stability, and to neighbors like Iran, Syria and Turkey, who could help them do so. A U.N. imprimatur would undercut the common Arab view that the war is really an imperialist oil grab or a bid to bolster Israel.

But the Bush Administration has lost its appetite for the U.N. Secretary of State Colin Powell told a congressional committee last week that "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future." Washington respects the U.N.'s technical skills with humanitarian aid and would be glad for a Security Council blessing that would legalize a U.S.-led occupation, encourage other countries to fund it and empower international bodies like the World Bank to operate in Iraq. Nevertheless, the White House envisions something closer to General MacArthur's prepotency in Japan after World War II than to the complex multinational arrangements established in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Washington has already started approving contracts expected to be worth some $900 million to smother Iraqi oil-well fires, rebuild roads and run ports, all to U.S. companies — a practice that would end if the Security Council were in charge. Nor could the Pentagon as easily promote its favored Iraqi exiles as the seed of a future government.

And after suffering what it regards as French intransigence in the Security Council, Washington has no interest in subjecting itself to that again. President Jacques Chirac said that France "will not accept a resolution that would legitimize military intervention and give the U.S. and the British the powers of administration in Iraq." His Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, in London to give a speech last week (he saw no British ministers), declared that U.N. inspectors should return to Iraq — but would not state which side he preferred to win the war. After British and American papers pilloried him, de Villepin's aides declared themselves "indignant." They said he had already endorsed a swift war with few casualties, which meant logically that he favors a coalition victory. He just didn't want to say it out loud in London.

As usual, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been trying to sand down the edges of discord. He saw Bush at Camp David and said afterward that the President's goal was "emphatically not" to administer Iraq as a U.S. protectorate. "Everyone agrees it would be best to have a U.N. resolution governing this situation," he said, predicting with confidence (or bravado) that agreement would eventually be reached on the "details." His relentless effort to fashion new strands in the transatlantic bridge had some payoff when the Security Council voted to restart the oil-for-food program that finances Iraq's humanitarian aid — even though that will tacitly legitimize the British and American forces that will be its conduits. A senior U.S. official said the U.N. debate had "gone from high principle to the blatantly commercial," with France, Russia, China and Syria seeking assurances that they wouldn't lose their aid contracts in Iraq.

But they have cards to play too. If the U.S. wants sanctions lifted after the war, it will need votes from the Security Council. "Our paradigm is 'U.N. role, not U.N. rule,'" says a senior U.S. official. But in diplomacy as in war, even weak opponents can still sometimes exert surprising leverage.

• J.F.O. MCALLISTER | London
• The U.S. and Europe are already squabbling over who'll run post-war Iraq