If we can stop it but don't then we are falling short. We have rightly declared the UN to be corrupt and ineffective. It would be less than honorable to now wait for them to act and to use their inaction as an excuse for ours.
"You may disagree with the US having an interest in mid-East countries like Iraq, but after 9/11 the issue is at least arguable."
Where the heck are you getting that from? Certainly not anything I've ever written.
"We have no interest in what's going on in Africa, except a humane one..."
Exactly the same interest that we had in Rwanda. Using this statement as an argument of logic Clinton was right to let the Rwanda slaughter go unchallenged.
We're the "big guys". We can do anything we want. But that doesn't mean that we should.
The UN is being revealed as a failing institution. Maybe it should be dissolved. But that doesn't mean that the US should act unilaterally where it has no interest.
clinton should have tried to pressure the UN to solve the Rwanda problem. He didn't. We lost years by that neglect. But that doesn't mean that trying to work through the UN is wrong now.