But it is true that we would be glad for more help than we are getting. Nations that have useful peacekeepers at their disposal probably aren't going to come in to do their share about the collegial problem in the Mideast. The administration acknowledges this by the verve with which we are setting up an Iraqi governing council to take over as much of the burden as can be shared.
The crystallizing position of our summer friends is that they wish U.N. authority to replace U.S. authority in Iraq. The French and the Germans are pretty direct on this point, and the U.N. bureaucracy is itching for authority.
It isn't immediately obvious just what points of contention there would be between the U.S. and the U.N. in the management of the Iraqi problem. Oil revenue, perhaps, though any surplus is many years down the road. What would threaten joint action is the importunate voice of Muslim fundamentalism. Kofi Annan is not built to press his own views athwart the hard opposition of non-Western opinion.
The Bush people are no doubt prepared, if necessary, to get on with the true liberation of Iraq without help, even from those neighbors who would most profit from a detoxified Iraq. Jordan's Al-Dustur reports that "The American adventure has reached its impasse. The American arrogance has been stripped of its peacock feathers." What would the Jordanian paper recommend? What was that paper saying in 1991 when Jordan sided with Saddam Hussein?
The Bush appeal for United Nations cooperation should be carefully made. Experienced observers will soon see that any failure in Iraq owing to a failure of other nations to discharge collegial responsibilities will damage the United Nations far more gravely than any clerical inattention to it by the United States. The sacred ideal of joint action is at stake.