Via LGF, this bit of addled thinking:
MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - Spain will ask anti-war allies Germany and France to join in a proposal calling for a U.S. exit from Iraq and a new international presence in the country, a Spanish government source said Tuesday.“The idea is to see if Spain, France and Germany can help the United States find an exit from Iraq...and devise a formula for an international presence there that would not be perceived as an occupation by most of the population,” the source said.
Let us presume, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Zapatero is correct in believing that the real problem in Iraq is that the occupation has an American face.
If this is true, then why was U.N. headquarters blown up back in August? If the insurgents wanted the U.S. out, then why attack a group of people who were, at the time, bending over backwards to be the exact, diametric opposite of the U.S. occupation authority? Hell, not only was Sergio Viera de Mello (RIP) trying to force Bremer and the CPA into taking a back seat to the UN, but the UN refused to erect simple vehicle barriers similar to the ones surrounding the U.S. Green Zone (which would have stopped the truck bomb) around its headquarters and retained the same security guards it had during the UNSCOM years because it wanted to appear more "open" to the average Iraqi people.
And if the U.S. is the problem, then why have Japanese and Chinese in Iraq been taken hostage? Why was Italian security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi executed on live TV? Why was the President of Bulgaria shot at? If it's all the America's fault, then why all these attacks on non-Americans?
Here's a clue for people lacking one. The insurgents (i.e. Moqtada al-Sadr, the Al-Qaeda sympathizers in Fallujah) are not mad at at the U.S. because the U.S. is in charge in Iraq.
The insurgents are mad at the U.S. because someone else besides THEM is in charge in Iraq. This fight is over power, pure and simple. We have it, and they want it. (This also does not preclude the possibility that these insurgencies could be running along the lines of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and form temporary alliances against the U.S. But I think it goes without saying what lies at the end of that path if we leave.) Even if the U.S. would turn over Iraq to this hypothetical international force, it would not change the fact that the insurgents would still want power, and they would want it enough to kill anyone who stands it their way, regardless of what national flag patch they wear.
And one other thing... consider the respective records of the U.S. and the "international community" (i.e. the UN) in nation-building. If the U.S. can't handle Iraq...then I don't think a bunch of Blue Helmets would have a snowball's chance in hell.
UPDATE: Mohammed from Iraq, The Model agrees:
When I heard about the decision of the coalition to get UN involved the in the process of authority handover, I grew really restless, and what made me more worried is that ‘all parts’ seem to agree on this; the coalition, the UN the GC and the whole world. Now wait a minute! Is that the same useless, half corrupted organization that supported Saddam, and still support his likes in the name of preserving the international wall? Is that the same organization that left Iraq and the Iraqi people after the 1st terrorist attack? I hope they are speaking of something other than that. Some people would say that this is what the Iraqi people want, but this (if it’s ever true) is not the question.