THE FAILURE of George Bush and Tony Blair to plan wisely to ensure the maintenance of law and order in Iraq after the successful military invasion is a tragedy for which many people are still paying a high price.

The main lesson, I fear, has not been fully learnt. The lesson is that leadership in wartime is about anticipation and planning for different eventualities, just as much as it is about setting clear objectives and steeling oneself to do what is necessary to achieve them.

It is for this reason that I read last Saturday’s Comment page headline with dismay: “Our troops must quit Iraq when the UN mandate ends in a year.” Oh really, I thought, do the authors, Robin Cook, Douglas Hurd and Menzies Campbell know exactly what is going to happen over the next few months? What if when the newly elected Iraqi assembly first meets, it asks us to withdraw our troops? Do we still stay for another year? What if the assembly asks for the present UN mandate to be changed? What if the United States and Britain decide to ask the Security Council for the UN mandate to be changed? What if the US and UK are ready for the UN to play a much larger role? Are we still to demand the withdrawal of our forces in these circumstances?

The truth, surely, is that no one can be certain of what is going to happen. Haven’t we learnt enough from our early mistakes to teach us to plan for every eventuality? Surely we should be anticipating a number of different outcomes and be far readier than before to encourage the Iraqi viewpoint to come through and to listen and adjust our thinking to theirs. Why else start the democratic process if we set in stone deadlines and attitudes before hearing the views of Iraqis?

And then there is the motivation of the US and British troops, morale already having been badly damaged by the deplorable conduct of a few in the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Why risk your life if you are being told that the whole thing is going to be ended in a year’s time, regardless of how well you do and regardless of the military and security situation. No responsible leader can possibly expect his armed forces to respond to a message that an exit date has been fixed regardless of the outcome. The military are dedicated to winning, they do not respect commanders who are not similarly dedicated. Of course they are realists and know that commanders have to cut their losses and that there is a place for a skillfully conducted retreat. But they do not expect to announce their retreat in advance. They survive on measured optimism, not on political pessimism.

These internal reasons are not the only arguments for retaining our flexibility. There is also the changing balance of power in world affairs.

President Bush and Mr Blair deserve some respect for keeping their nerve in fraught circumstances. Their critics should give them credit for the military and political calls they have made correctly. And doing so would help the critics understand why it is wrong to be dogmatic about an exit date.

Look at the Arab-Israeli situation. It is clear that this US Administration was right to distance itself from Yassir Arafat and insist on a new interlocutor. There are now hopeful signs that Mr Bush realises that the time for standing back diplomatically has gone. His new Secretary of State’s forthcoming visit to meet Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas suggests that the diplomatic pace is quickening. Movement over the Arab-Israeli conflict would increase the readiness of the world to rethink attitudes to the Iraq conflict and change the situation there materially.

Then there is Iran. President Bush appears ready to search for a diplomatic solution to the problem of Tehran’s quest for nuclear weapons. It appears he will wait to see if German, British and French diplomacy can succeed. This three-nation effort needs reinforcing by Russian diplomacy. Iran’s nuclear aspirations will not easily be closed down, but a successful transition to a democratic government in Iraq is the best possible way of encouraging civil society in Iran to assert people power.

And there is Syria. It is possible that at last that country will recognise the need to change its foreign policy towards the Shia majority in Iraq.

Yet while these developments could all help, it will be the Iraqi people who will have to make the big compromises among themselves. Do Cook, Hurd and Campbell really know how relationships between the Shia majority and the Kurds will work out under the threat of continued Sunni-dominated insurgency? Are they really sure that telling them when we will exit will help that process?

I hope, perhaps too optimistically, that the Shia and Kurdish leaders will come together to reassure the Sunni Arabs and develop a federal structure on which a stable Iraq can be built. If they do compromise I will be reasonably confident that the insurgency will be defeated.

To anticipate the way the next few months will go is difficult. Establishing an assembly for Iraq is likely to change the atmosphere, for good or ill. We will, in all likelihood, then be grappling with a different set of circumstances and problems. Surely then the best advice is to listen and learn more and avoid too much prescription. Above all let us not attempt to pick an exit before we are better able to see Iraq’s future.

Lord Owen was Foreign Secretary, 1977-79

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