Back To the Basics

This past week looked like a "tipping point" in Iraq, in which separate events combined to produce a big change in the overall situation. President Bush spent the week mostly out of sight at his Texas ranch -- apparently not wanting to create any sense of panic or crisis. His tough-guy nonchalance has its moments, but this wasn't one of them.

The Bush administration must recognize that Iraq is now a three-alarm fire. American policy there is stumbling, and the causes need to be addressed urgently. The basic problem continues to be security, but it doesn't have a purely military solution: We can't fix this one simply by sending in more troops, occupying more cities or patrolling more Shiite neighborhoods. That way leads to a brutal quagmire.

To get Iraq right, the Bush administration must restore what was (or should have been) the basic rationale for the war: The Iraqi people want a new country, free from both the oppression of Saddam Hussein and the domination of foreign occupation. America helped them win the first of those freedoms, and Iraqis now demand the second.

The United States and its allies have two months to get it right, so that most Iraqis will accept a continuing role for the coalition after the June 30 transfer of sovereignty. I'm assuming (perhaps overoptimistically) that the balance in Iraq hasn't quite tipped yet and that last week's uprising will gradually blow itself out.

What's needed is a "New Deal" for Iraq -- a post-June 30 plan that evokes the crash efforts of Franklin D. Roosevelt to turn the momentum of the Great Depression. No more administration pieties about democracy and terrorism, please. In the nine months before Iraq is to hold elections, the United States must focus on the basics: Put people to work, make them feel that the United States and its allies are bringing a better life. Some specifics suggested to me by Iraqi friends:

• Provide electricity everywhere, 24 hours a day, by the scheduled handover of sovereignty. If it takes an airlift of C-17s carrying generators, do it; if it means expensive temporary fixes, do it. The lack of electric power has been a symbol of U.S. failure in Iraq; make reliable electricity a symbol of success.

• Speed up the $18 billion in reconstruction spending the United States promised in January. That effort was supposed to deliver 50,000 new jobs by June 30. Iraqis need to see action, now.

• Put more money on the streets quickly, through crash public works projects. The coalition cleaned up Baghdad last summer by paying thousands of kids a few dollars a day to sweep streets. Do it again. Put more money into the hands of local political, tribal and religious leaders. Some of it will be wasted, but in a good cause.

A New Deal for Iraq means correcting some of the political errors that led to the current mess. The Pentagon (which failed badly at nation-building in Iraq) must give way to the State Department. Occupation czar L. Paul Bremer (a brave man who deserved better support from Pentagon civilians) will be replaced June 30 by a new U.S. ambassador. Because so much of the job will involve liaison with the United Nations, a good choice would be the current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte. And surely it's time to end any remaining Pentagon subsidies to the mercurial Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi and let him fly solo in the new Iraq.

The Iraqi security situation will remain a nightmare for months and probably years to come, but there are ways to avoid making it worse. Despite last week's spasm of violence, the United States should stick to its earlier plans for pulling troops out of populated areas and moving them to garrisons from which they can deploy rapidly.

Iraq's own security forces clearly aren't ready to take over yet, so the transition will be ragged. But last week's surprising unity of Sunni and Shiite religious and political figures suggested that perhaps the country's leaders now hate the United States more than they hate each other. Maybe they can find unity in their Iraq-ness. And to gain Iranian help in stabilizing the budding Shiite insurrection, Britain is said to be holding secret talks with Tehran.

Building a new political order in Iraq will be the work of a decade. All of the dreams and dangers of the Greater Middle East are now compressed into this pressure cooker. The process of change is going to be messier than anyone wanted, but it's not going to stop.

davidignatius@washpost.com