From The Asia Times
By Thalif Deen

Faced with an unwinnable five-year war in Iraq, the United States may be looking toward the United Nations to extricate it from the growing military quagmire, according to diplomats and political analysts.

“With the war turning out to be a huge political liability for the ruling Republican Party at the upcoming elections in November [next year],” an Asian diplomat said, “it is a safe guess the White House may eventually dump Iraq on the United Nations.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who appears more pliable to the administration of President George W Bush than was his predecessor Kofi Annan, told news reporters in Baghdad in March that he was considering “increasing” the UN’s presence in Iraq as the political and military situation in the country improved.

“The United Nations has been actively participating and helping Iraqi people through various means - humanitarian, economic and political facilitation,” Ban said, just after he instinctively ducked when an explosion shook Baghdad’s Green Zone during a televised news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

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