by TChris

The Bush administration would like voters to believe that all will be well (at least for the U.S.) come June 30 when Iraq becomes "sovereign," but former ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy says the administration "has oversold the significance of the June 30 handover."

The new Iraqi government is not all that new. Some of its leaders have been on the U.S.-appointed interim Governing Council for the past year. The Bush administration's biggest challenge will be to help the incoming government gain credibility while convincing Iraqis that it represents real change and a meaningful step toward an Iraq under Iraqi control.

Conditions in Iraq won't change on July 1, and the U.S. military presence won't disappear. It would be absurdly optimistic to believe that Iraqis will view the new non-elected government as differing substantively from the current non-elected governing council.

Murphy wants the administration to let the new government exercise real power so Iraqis will feel invested in elections, confident that they are taking control of their country. He argues that the Bush administration should "bend over backwards" to tolerate Iraqi disagreement with U.S. policy. If Iraq will be sovereign (as Bush insists), deference to the new government's autonomous decision-making should be automatic. The Bush administration plainly isn't expecting much independent thinking from the transitional government, and isn't likely to be as tolerant of defiance as Murphy suggests it should be. We'll see over the next few months just how sovereign Iraq has become.