Even for a President Kerry, Help Isn’t on the Way in Iraq

WASHINGTON, 22 October 2004 — Despite Sen. John F. Kerry’s assertion that his election would bring more international support for the war in Iraq, he is likely to face the same resistance from US allies as President Bush to sending troops to fight the insurgency or big infusions of money to provide jobs to Iraqis and rebuild the country, diplomats and analysts say.

Even though public opinion in many countries favors Kerry over Bush, the current violence in Iraq and the widespread unpopularity of the war would make it politically difficult for foreign leaders to offer significant help to the United States if the Massachusetts senator captures the White House, analysts say. Kerry has repeatedly criticized Bush for alienating longtime US allies, saying the president rushed to war and refused to give them a major stake in Iraq’s postwar reconstruction.

He has made drawing greater international support the top element of his plan for correcting what he calls the “mess’’ in Iraq and making the country secure enough that US troops can start to come home.

“Getting more countries in Iraq won’t be easy now,’’ Kerry said Wednesday. “In fact, this president makes it harder every day.’’

“But with new leadership, a fresh start, and new credibility, I believe it can be done — because chaos in Iraq is as bad for our allies and Iraq’s neighbors as it is for us. It’s in their self-interest to prevent Iraq from becoming a permanent terrorist haven in the heart of the Middle East,’’ Kerry said in a speech in Waterloo, Iowa.

A spokesman, Mark Kitchens, said that with a Kerry presidency, “more boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan is certainly possible,’’ both from traditional US allies and other countries that lent support to Bush’s father during the 1991 Gulf War.

Kerry hopes to persuade the NATO alliance to make Iraq part of its global mission. Potential troop contributors would be assigned “specific and relatively low-risk but critical roles, such as training Iraqi security personnel and securing Iraq’s borders.’’

Kerry has called for a summit of the world’s major powers and key Arab and Muslim nations to seek troops, trainers for Iraqi security forces and a special brigade to protect UN staffers, all measures urged in a UN Security Council resolution adopted in June.

In general, Kerry faces a big challenge in generating substantial new support from other nations, analysts say.

“There may be some reluctance to bail the Bush administration out, but I also think there’s going to be a lot of reluctance to bail a potential Kerry administration out, too,’’ said Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution. “One of the things that’s been very clear is that even if there is a change here in Washington, that there’s no great enthusiasm, at least among Europeans, for playing a greater role.’’

There is little doubt that a Kerry victory would be welcomed by much of the public in Western Europe, where Bush is widely unpopular. Views of the United States in much of the Middle East have turned sharply negative under Bush, both because of the war in Iraq and because of strong US support for Israel in its conflict with Palestinians.

Because of the anti-Bush sentiment, analysts say foreign leaders would want to give Kerry a sign of support on Iraq if he were elected. Both in Europe and the Middle East, many leaders fear the prospect of chaos or civil war in Iraq if the American effort fails. They worry that this would increase instability in the region and possibly lead to more anti-Western terrorism.

But what difference Kerry’s election would make in terms of actual contributions of troops or money, debt relief or training of Iraqi security forces remains unclear.

Last month, a senior aide to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Bernd Mutzelburg, told Kerry advisers in Washington not to expect Germany to send troops if Kerry won, a German Embassy official said, confirming a report in the Financial Times of London.

In a speech last week, France’s ambassador to Washington, Jean-David Levitte, reiterated his country’s long-standing refusal to send troops to Iraq. A French diplomat said this position had been made clear to candidates throughout the election campaign.

Levitte said more European troops aren’t the answer. “On the contrary, it would reinforce the feeling of occupation at the very moment we should give the Iraqi people, as we did for the Afghan people, a sense of empowerment.’’

Josef Joffe, publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit and a commentator on trans-Atlantic relations, said, “Europe doesn’t want the US to fail, (but) it doesn’t want the US to win.’’ Speaking at a weekend conference sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he relayed a current joke in Berlin: “Schroeder wants Bush to win, because it’s easier to say no to Bush.’’

Poland, one of Bush’s strongest supporters in Europe, has announced that it plans to withdraw its troops next year.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose country is a member of NATO, reiterated his refusal to send troops to Iraq last week. One sign of the difficulty in getting more troops and money for Iraq is the difficulty the Atlantic alliance already has had in generating enough forces to stabilize Afghanistan, where the US-led invasion in late 2001 drew widespread international support.

Some of the proposals put forward by Kerry already are being pursued by the Bush administration, although with mixed success. While Kerry has called for an international summit, the Bush administration is preparing for a conference in Cairo, Egypt, late next month, gathering Iraq’s neighbors and the world’s major industrialized countries to figure out ways of increasing international support for Iraq.

The Kerry campaign has said more troops might be drawn from non-European countries. Bush has tried to get them. But neither Pakistan nor India, both friendly toward the Bush administration, has so far been willing to send troops. Several of Iraq’s Arab neighbors have said it would be a mistake for them to send troops into Iraq, and Turkey’s offer to send forces has been rebuffed by Iraqi leaders. Some analysts said Arab states farther away, such as Morocco, might be persuaded to send troops to protect UN staffers, who are badly needed to help prepare for elections. One diplomat said Arab states might be more willing to send troops if Kerry were to offer a timetable for withdrawal of US troops. Others said Arab countries might send peacekeeping forces later under a UN mandate, once the United States begins its own withdrawal, analysts said.

On the stepped-up training of Iraqis proposed by Kerry, NATO announced plans last week to accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces under Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, sending 300 instructors to Iraq by the end of the year and eventually expanding the mission to as many as 3,000 instructors.