Analysis: Role defined for UN in Iraq

By Barnaby Mason BBC diplomatic correspondent

For more than a month in the run-up to the Iraq war, the UN Security Council was the scene of bitter wrangling between two big power camps - the US and UK on one side and France, Russia and Germany on the other.

In the end, US President George Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair abandoned the attempt to secure a resolution to strengthen their hand on military action in the face of French and Russian threats to veto it.

The role of the United Nations is at stake

But now the Security Council is approving a far-reaching resolution that lifts sanctions and endorses American and British plans in effect to run the political transition in Iraq and decide the spending of its oil revenues.

After only a few days of formal negotiation and a number of mostly minor amendments to the text, France, Russia and Germany announced they would vote in favour of the resolution.

They were the countries that in February and March formed a solid front against the war resolution, rejecting that as an ultimatum with an automatic trigger for the use of force.

President Chirac said he would veto it whatever the circumstances. Britain described French policy as extraordinary, designed to make the Security Council unworkable. France said those remarks were not worthy of a friendly nation and European partner.

Vetoes

Heavy pressure by the United States notably failed to shift small member states caught in the middle of the quarrel.

The worst did not happen - vetoes were not used - because in the end there was no majority for the resolution anyway. Even so, there was apocalyptic talk of the collapse of the Security Council and the UN system.

The new Security Council resolution does show that even the world's only superpower needs the UN at times

Now, barely two months later, the UN is back at the centre of attention.

The United States needed sanctions lifted to be able to export Iraqi oil legally and use the proceeds for reconstruction. That gave France and Russia a bargaining card, but not a very strong one: arguing against lifting sanctions looked like penalising the Iraqi people - as Germany was the first to realise.

There was never a suggestion that anyone would be using the veto. The members of the anti-war camp had to recognise the reality of American and British control on the ground, partly to protect their own economic interests in Iraq.

They have obtained some strengthening of UN involvement in Iraq, a degree of international monitoring, concessions on oil-for-food contracts and the possibility at least of a future role for UN weapons inspectors.

But in essence the Security Council resolution endorses arrangements whereby the United States and Britain will in effect run the political transition and control the spending of Iraq's oil revenues.

Global security

Contrast that with President Chirac's statement during the war that France would not accept any new resolution legitimising the intervention and giving the American and British belligerents the right to administer Iraq. Russia made a similar commitment.

The resolution they have accepted may not legitimise the invasion but it certainly legitimises the dominant American-British role post-war.

And the conciliatory signals go beyond Iraq.

President Putin has sent a message to President Bush saying that Russia wants to expand co-operation with the United States in all spheres. Their strategic partnership, he says, promotes global security and thus benefits the whole international community.

The French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, says it is time to restore the unity of the international community - what is really at stake is restoring the role of the United Nations.

Mr de Villepin says the UN is back. The new Security Council resolution does show that even the world's only superpower needs the UN at times.

But critics of the Bush administration will say it treats the UN as a tool - to be picked up when it is useful and ignored when it is not.