"Any vote passed by the UN would be irrelevant once we left. Other countries would follow our lead, expotentially accellerating the UN's demise . Your pacifistic arguments are based on the flawed assumption that the UN has something we need, rather than the other way around. Do you honestly think that, once a France led UN enevitably demands it's members "pick sides", there's be anyone left to fold the chairs up at the end of the day?"
The answer to your questions resides in yet another question, but back to you: Has France managed to reduce our coalition of nations in Iraq, or has the U.S. grown that coalition into something that makes the UN membership pale in comparison?
Oh, and you also got my "pacificism" wrong. I'm a hawk. Using force is an American strong suit, an option that I favor. For the UN, if merely withdrawing would work to end it overnight, then I'd be in that camp. But it won't.
All that withdrawing the U.S. from the UN would accomplish would be to surrender our UN veto while yielding global diplomacy to the whims of the French and Chinese.
Withdrawing from the UN would be like a pompous CEO quitting his company under the impression that the firm would fold up after he left. Such CEO's are typically dismayed to learn that the firm stumbles on even without their leadership.
Don't be that CEO.
"All that withdrawing the U.S. from the UN would accomplish would be to surrender our UN veto while yielding global diplomacy to the whims of the French and Chinese." That's an interesting point. But what exactly could the UN do to us if we kick them out and save 10s of billions of dollars? I imagine they would threaten economic sanctions. Ah... world wide recession or worse, possibly. The UN is, indeed, selfish enough to cause that. And I suppose they could.
Do we keep feeding this monster? Do we negotiate to save money? Do we even lift a finger when the World Court arrests a US citizen for a 'crime against nature'?