Posted on 03/19/2003 2:41:57 AM PST by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - The failure of the United Nations to take action against Iraq, combined with President Bush's strong condemnation of the Security Council, has left the international body with little authority and in need of reform, according to several policy experts.
Although some members of the Bush administration were suspicious of the United Nations even before taking their case against Iraq to the Security Council, relations are now likely to worsen, said Nile Gardiner, an Anglo-American policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"The United Nations had a final shot of redemption on the Iraq question and they didn't take it," he said. "I believe we are going to see increasing disengagement from the U.N. process by the United States. The United Nations is dying a slow death as a political organization."
In his speech Monday night, Bush recognized the 17 resolutions adopted by the United Nations on Iraqi disarmament. He also chided the Security Council, which never voted on an 18th resolution largely as a result of France's promise to veto it.
"The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours," Bush told the nation.
Although France placed the blame on the United States and United Kingdom for failing to convince a majority of the 15-member Security Council of Iraq's threats, some observers said France's obstructionism was the root of the problem.
James Lindsay, deputy director and senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said France's terms for war remain unclear. Given those circumstances, he said, the Bush administration should not be blamed for failed diplomacy.
"I don't think the French have covered themselves in the glory on this issue," Lindsay said. "Was there ever a set of circumstances under which Paris would have gone to war? If the answer to that question is no, it really doesn't matter what kind of diplomatic effort the Bush administration made - it wasn't going to change the outcome."
France's refusal to go along with a U.S. plan to topple Saddam Hussein has created a divisive "trans-Atlantic rift" that is not likely to dissipate as long as Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder remain in power, Lindsay said. European and American businesses could suffer as a result, he added.
The rift could also signal dramatic changes for the United Nations, said Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution foreign policy expert. He suggested that discussions are likely to take place inside the Bush administration about reforming the Security Council.
Since its creation in 1946, the U.N. Security Council has included five permanent members and 10 non-permanent rotating countries. France, based on its global standing following World War II, became a permanent member and has veto power along with China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
O'Hanlon said France's membership on the Security Council has been a long-running debate in academia, but it could gain popularity given the deep divisions over Iraq. Some scholars have suggested India would be better suited for the role.
"I would not be surprised if this administration, maybe not right away, but early in a second term if it wins re-election, thinks of reforming the basic structure of the Security Council," O'Hanlon said. "The broader question of how you dilute the power of France, which has acted in an even more unilateralist way than the Bush administration, has to be one that Washington wants to consider."
The United Nations still has a role with Iraq, just not politically, Gardiner said. He would like to see the body help rebuild Iraq. But he said France, Germany, Russia, China or any other country that refused to support an Iraq war should be excluded.
"The French come out of this as the main villain," Gardiner said. "They have effectively wounded the United Nations, endangered the future of NATO, they have created a major trans-Atlantic rift and the French have shamelessly appeased Saddam Hussein for the last two decades."
Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he disagrees with Bush's approach to a war with Iraq, but he agrees with the president's decision to move forward without backing from the United Nations. He said if Bush has evidence that Iraq poses a security risk, the matter should have never gone to the Security Council.
As a result, the United Nations stands weaker today, which is not necessarily a bad thing, according to Pena.
"The United Nations is relevant when the United States or any other country wants it to be relevant for its own political purposes," he said. "It is irrelevant whenever it is convenient to ignore. That is how the United Nations is treated because no country is ever going to surrender its sovereignty to a super-national organization."
E-mail a news tip to Robert B. Bluey.
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About time. We can quit whizing money down that bureaucratic RAT-hole.
An important point I'm certain the UN has overlooked a time or two.
Too slow in my book. We should speed it up by kicking them out of NYC.
I'm just wondering HOW far things will have to progress down the toilet before the various savages that make up the UN will be pressed to unanimously say "Aw, the hell with it" and shut down.
(Apologies to the old Star Trek)
They will stay open as long as someone is willing to pay the bill for their extravagant saleries. They are a waste. We should pull out of the U.N. as quickly as allowed by good manners.
I couldn't be happier. It, the UN, is nothing but a drain on our treasury. And to think that Clinton wanted to give control of our national parks to this outfit is mind boggling.
Maybe some Dutch euthanasia could put it out of its misery.
… and we can only hope it remains dead, Jim. But I’m afraid that Bush is too much of a Globalist to allow the U.N. to rest in peace – it is too big a part of his “New World Order.”
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