Winning the war in Iraq may have been relatively easy, but America’s intoxication with victory must eventually give way to a sobering reality that few of us have even begun to appreciate.

And the sooner that distracting euphoria ends, the better it will be for the people of Iraq, said Bahman Baktiari, director of the international affairs program and associate professor of political science at the University of Maine.

“I don’t think one can be optimistic about the situation in Iraq right now because the country has been in turmoil for over 30 years,” said Baktiari, an internationally recognized authority on the Middle East who has twice served as a consultant to the State Department regarding the politics of Iran and Iraq.

“Any realistic solution to the creation of a constructive working government in Iraq, for its institutions to be rebuilt and its leaders to emerge, will take at least five to six years.”

Baktiari, a native of Iran and a U.S. citizen, said he believes that the postwar plight of Iraq is far more serious than has been portrayed in the American media. Iraq essentially is a country of urban centers, he said, and none of them can offer even the most basic of services to their people.

“The major cities will require a substantial investment to restore a sense of law and order,” he said. “And I cannot see how it is possible to restore order to a capital of 5 million people when they do not have the essential resources. We may be sitting on a disaster right now. As much as 60 percent of Iraqis were dependent on their government for food subsidies and other means of support. So without a government, who will provide that now?”

The fact that the Bush administration has not yet declared victory in Iraq, he said, may be an indication of its growing awareness of the immense challenges it faces in an expensive, protracted restoration.

“We must become more multilateral in our efforts there,” Baktiari said. “We must finally see that rebuilding of Iraq cannot be done by one or two countries. There are so many aspects to the reconstruction – economic, cultural, political and social – that it is urgent that the United Nations becomes involved immediately.”

Baktiari said he doesn’t believe that the International Red Cross alone is capable of helping all of Iraq’s refugees and displaced persons who now need food, water, medical care and other critical services. An effective, sustained relief effort, he said, must include the World Food Program as well as the assistance of organizations such as UNICEF, to evaluate the sanitation and public health concerns of the ravaged country, and UNESCO, to assess the damage to museums and archaeological sites.

“Right now the relief effort is absolutely minimal, as far as I can tell,” he said. “Iraq is a landlocked country, and without clean water there is the risk for huge problems later on with cholera and many other diseases. Our military is not built to handle this kind of massive humanitarian operation.”

With the recent destruction of the country’s national museum and library, Iraqis must now grapple with a dangerous present, an uncertain future and an obliterated past. Baghdad’s National Library was gutted by fire, and looters devastated the Iraqi National Museum, which housed irreplaceable Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian and Akkadian collections that spanned 7,000 years of history in ancient Mesopotamia.

“The fact that coalition troops did not protect these important sites was a grave mistake,” Baktiari said. “About 95 percent of the artifacts were stolen or destroyed completely. The pillaging and the looting has also taken away the government’s records. All the ministries were attacked and pillaged, which will make the reconstruction of a workable civil service system extremely difficult.”

The ransacking spree also has deprived Iraq’s young people of their storied national patrimony.

“It’s going to be terrible for the psyche of the population now that such a big part of their past is gone,” he said. “We in America take for granted our many museums and universities and libraries. But Iraq had only the one important museum in Baghdad, and I expect this to have a severe impact on the future of education and cultural development in Iraq.”

Despite the widespread problems, Baktiari said, he is certain that Iraq has the potential to emerge one day as a much better country, now that Saddam’s oppressive regime has been toppled.

“But the challenge is to create a replacement for that regime that satisfies the needs and demands of the Iraqis while at the same time does not undermine the interests of the United States and Great Britain.

Occupying a country for six years will require a much greater building of consensus with Congress, the UN and the international community. Winning the war is easy, but winning the peace will be very difficult. We cannot hope to do this alone.”