Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

UN: As Diplomacy Winds Down, Damage Control For Council Seen As Crucial
Radio Free Europe ^ | 3-18-03 | By Robert McMahon

Posted on 03/18/2003 11:14:15 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer

The failure of the United Nations Security Council to reach a unified position on Iraq has raised concern that its credibility has been damaged at a critical time. In particular, UN experts say the relations of two key members -- the United States and France -- will need to be repaired in order for the council to play a constructive role in Iraq's future and cope effectively with other crises.

United Nations, 18 March 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Only four months ago, a unanimous United Nations Security Council called for tough new weapons inspections in Iraq, in what was seen as a triumph of both U.S. and French diplomacy. But now diplomacy on reaching a common position on Iraq is nearly exhausted amid bitter divisions between the United States and France over the results of those inspections.

U.S. and British diplomats yesterday announced that they would not be seeking a vote on their draft resolution to authorize military action against Iraq. They singled out France's veto threat, saying it had undermined the negotiating process.

But French officials stressed that it was the will of a majority of council members not to impose a military solution when UN inspections were seen as working.

There is concern about lasting damage to the UN Security Council, where France and the United States are permanent members. Their engagement will be needed not only on dealing with a postwar situation in Iraq but also on antiterrorism measures, on which France has provided key assistance, and on dealing with North Korea.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the latest developments marked a defeat for the UN Security Council. "The UN is an important institution, and it will survive, and the United States will continue to be an important member of the United Nations and its various organizations. But clearly, this is a test, in my judgment, that the Security Council did not meet," Powell said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the end of diplomatic efforts a disappointment, saying "war is always a catastrophe." Annan yesterday ordered the evacuation of UN staff from Iraq, including weapons monitors, peacekeepers, and those who run the crucial oil-for-food program.

A number of UN experts interviewed by RFE/RL regretted what they saw as missed opportunities for the Security Council to come to a common agreement.

Brian Urquhart is a former UN undersecretary-general and a veteran of numerous crises handled by the UN. He said the U.S. goal of replacing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, as opposed to the council's stated mission of disarmament, caused difficulties for a number of members. "Regime change has always been the real objective of the Bush administration, and it unquestionably is not the real objective of a great number of other countries, who regard regime change as a precedent which could become very difficult if it started to be applied -- after Saddam Hussein is gone -- to all sorts of other countries," Urquhart said.

Urquhart and other experts said the council deliberations were further complicated by the fundamentally different views held by Washington and Paris on the aims of Resolution 1441. The resolution, approved in November, did not list a timeline for decisions, calling instead for Iraq to face "serious consequences" if it failed to cooperate fully with inspectors.

Urquhart said the U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf area has unquestionably brought about a number of concessions from Baghdad. He said France, Germany, and Russia may have counted on that pressure to secure full compliance from Iraq on disarmament issues.

From the time Resolution 1441 was adopted, the United States and France appear to have misinterpreted each other, says David Malone, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN and president of the International Peace Academy. "The French believed the Americans would now support a process of inspectors and give it all the time it needed to either succeed or fail. The Americans, I think, felt that the French, in the logic of 1441, accepted that this was a last warning and would agree after some months of Iraqi noncompliance to call an end to the inspection process," Malone said.

Instead of rallying to the U.S. position threatening force, France became the leader of a group of states promoting an extended inspection program. Russia had also threatened to veto the U.S.-British-Spanish draft, and China had consistently supported more inspections. But, unlike France, they were careful not to antagonize Washington, Malone said. "The Russians and the Chinese, both of whom have a very active agenda with Washington, while disagreeing with it on Iraq, seemed very keen to preserve their working relationship, and I think [they] have succeeded," Malone said.

U.S. officials also have their own misguided diplomacy to blame for the impasse, says Simon Serfaty, director of the Europe program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Serfaty faults Washington for not making a proper effort to make its case with its skeptical European allies before asking them to support a war with unknown consequences.

But Serfaty said the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had reason to be frustrated with France for engaging in antiwar campaigning. "What ought to be resented with regard to the French attitude is not that they said no. It is rather that they were so active in making sure the rest of the world, too, was saying no," Serfaty said.

What is needed now, Urquhart said, is for council members to end their public feuding. Despite criticisms of the Security Council's effectiveness, Urquhart said the body can play a very useful role in Iraq's future. "It's an institution which you can either use and make work or you can fail to make work, and at this particular point they've failed to make it work, but that doesn't mean they've got to junk it so they can't use it another time. I think that would be very stupid," Urquhart said.

The final chapter of preventive diplomacy on Iraq is likely to close this week at the United Nations. France proposed a meeting of foreign ministers for tomorrow to hear a report from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on key remaining disarmament tasks for Iraq. It was not immediately certain who would attend, although Russia and Germany supported the idea. News reports quoted close aides to Powell saying he would not attend.


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; Israel; Japan; Mexico; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Russia; United Kingdom; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: irrelevant
Irrelevant.
1 posted on 03/18/2003 11:14:15 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
Perhaps the UN would be more comforatble in France.
2 posted on 03/18/2003 11:19:19 AM PST by talleyman (Violins never solved anything!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
I'm trying to think of anything useful the UN has done since its inception, and it's pretty hard.

Some Freepers have spoken in favor of its humanitarian efforts. But:

a) They haven't done anything that couldn't have been done more cheaply and efficiently by individual nations or charitable organizations.

b) Most of its humanitarian efforts have been twisted to evil purposes in recent years. Whenever there's a disaster, the UN is among the first to arrive--with truckloads of condoms and field companies of abortionists.

No, the UN has merely been a distraction from what the world should have been doing: conducting multilateral negotiations among elected governments, making pacts with allies, agreeing to mutually beneficial treaties, and the like. None of this needs the UN or any other unelected, unaccountable organization.
3 posted on 03/18/2003 11:20:43 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
Indeed. We're the ones who say we don't need the UN or the French. It's up to them to persuade us otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, we should recall our ambassador to Paris for 'consulatations' and tell the French to talk to the hand....
4 posted on 03/18/2003 11:21:49 AM PST by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Mesopotamiam Esse Delendam)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CatoRenasci
Pop go the weasels. They played chicken with the only superpower and now understand how Corrie felt when that bulldozer ran over her, and for the exact same reason.
5 posted on 03/18/2003 11:26:46 AM PST by dirtboy (Render yourself invisible to the media - attend a Rally for America today!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Cicero
Regarding your comments, the UN should not have ever been tasked with doing ANYTHING. Its best and only valuable purpose is as a forum for discussion (mostly of and between the world powers). That forum in 62 helped diffuse the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that capacity, it was a good thing. It also doesn't hurt to give third world nations a place to voice their issues. But as you have said, anytime they try to actually DO anything, they usually muck it up at twice the price.
6 posted on 03/18/2003 11:30:14 AM PST by Magnum44 (remember the Challenger 7, remember the Columbia 7, and never forget 9-11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
Behind the scenes at the UN Security Council:

Koffi Anan: "Gentlemen, we've gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!"

Others: "Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!"

Koffi Anan (pointing): "I didn't get a 'Harrumph' outa that guy!"

Germany: "Harrumph."

Koffi: "You watch your a$$."

7 posted on 03/18/2003 11:31:12 AM PST by theDentist (So..... This is Virginia..... where are all the virgins?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
The money quote is:

"Regime change has always been the real objective of the Bush administration, and it unquestionably is not the real objective of a great number of other countries, who regard regime change as a precedent which could become very difficult if it started to be applied -- after Saddam Hussein is gone -- to all sorts of other countries."
That is why America is so feared by countries all over the world today. It is in the interest of the status quo to regard every state, no matter corrupt, brutal or dysfunctional, as sacrosanct, attaining to dignity and diplomatic usage. The revolutionary American idea is that state legitimacy depends on the consent of the governed.

Although this idea has long been theoretically incorporated in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, it was never taken seriously. The UN Declaration was largely window-dressing.

The real danger for the UN is that is now clear to most oppressed peoples that America and not the UNSC is the court of last resort. As crises emerge around the world, the focal point of diplomacy will no longer be the UN, but Washington.
8 posted on 03/18/2003 11:33:47 AM PST by wretchard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wretchard
"My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge. If Iraq's regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately, decisively to hold Iraq to account. We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions. But the purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced -- the just demands of peace and security will be met -- or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power."

-George W. Bush, September 12, 2002-
Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly

9 posted on 03/18/2003 11:40:56 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer (Let's Roll)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
"Regime change has always been the real objective of the Bush administration, and it unquestionably is not the real objective of a great number of other countries, who regard regime change as a precedent which could become very difficult if it started to be applied -- after Saddam Hussein is gone -- to all sorts of other countries," Urquhart said.

Wrong. It has been US policy for many years. For example:

Iraq Liberation Act

And ex-42's comments:

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

10 posted on 03/18/2003 11:47:43 AM PST by PogySailor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
The final chapter of preventive diplomacy on Iraq is likely to close this week at the United Nations. France proposed a meeting of foreign ministers for tomorrow to hear a report from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on key remaining disarmament tasks for Iraq. It was not immediately certain who would attend, although Russia and Germany supported the idea. News reports quoted close aides to Powell saying he would not attend.

Excellent!

11 posted on 03/18/2003 11:51:04 AM PST by mondonico (Peace through Superior Firepower)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
The myopic support for the UN in some parts of the US is a testament to the sad state of schooling in this country. I think a big part of the attachment to the UN is the allegiance everyone is taught to principles of democracy, platitudes such as "one man, one vote" and "majority rules".

Translated into global principles, this means to some numbskulls that the world should be governed by majority vote of the nations, and that those who don't accept what the other governments decree (as in Kyoto) are simply schoolyard bullies, refusing to submit to the civilized rules of a polite society, one that has debated and decided, and whose will must then be obeyed.

Let's break that thinking down, shall we:

In Libya, say, a young fellow not smart enough to promote himself from Colonel to General takes power from one strongman in a violent coup, and becomes a new strongman. What is a strongman? A nicety for a dictator, a person who is the only and ultimate political force within a polity. All political decisions, from the organization of the economic structures, ownership of property, allocation of government resources, conduct of military affairs, law, rights and issues of whether someone can continue to live, flow from this individual's will and no one else's.

This person, call him Daffy if you wish, is the person who determines what his country's vote within the UN. His will is no more a reflection of his country's will than any other person's, yet it is the one that counts within the UN.

By contrast, in another country, call it Freedistan, the President is elected by vote of the people. He is responsible for directing his country's foreign policy, including within the UN, but is constrained by the fact that he must be subjected periodically to the voters, and he does not pass the nation's laws, allocate its funds, or even determine the size of its military. All of those issues must be approved by a large body of haggling turkeys to whom the President must defer to and consult with if he wants to get anything through.

When that person then sets a policy at the UN, it may or may not reflect the thinking of his nation's will, but it usually does, and if it does not fairly reflect the polity from which it springs, the nation has methods of ensuring a change in regime.

By what muddled form of thinking does the will of one man, a tyrant who tortures those who disagree with him, merit the legitimacy of a "vote" at a body of Nations, a vote equal to the say of a person who has been chosen to represent a nation like Freelandia? I say the entire structure makes no sense, and not only is structured badly, but is a great force for evil, by perpetuating in easily misled minds that the will of such a body is worthy of consideration, and thus interfering with the beneficial efforts of representative and law-abiding societies to protect their interests in the world from the tyrants.

No nation deserves a "substantive" say in any international body unless that nation has passed a grueling set of tests that ensures that the position it takes within that body are the result of a political process designed to fairly reflect the views and beliefs of the people of that nation. Collections of national diplomatic corps which mingle democracies with dictators are fine for exchanging views, or organizing humanitarian efforts, but as a way to try to bind fair and free societies, they are anathema and should be avoided.

Instead, we need to educate the people of what I call "legitimate" governments to the notion that the UN is, for the most part, a collection of thugs and criminals, whose opinions are not relevant to, and certainly not binding upon, free societies. We should then begin the process of forming a "League of Free Peoples" (the LFP) or "Coalition of Legitimate Governments" (the CLG) or some such group, and only the actions of that body would merit any weight.

Its rules would reflect more accurately the weight that individual governments' views should be given (Iceland's vote would be worth less than ours, for example) and its actions would carry the actual imprimatur of international consensus. Initially, it would be composed of the US, Britain, Australia, Japan, the states of New Europe, as well as weasel democracies like France, Germany and Canada. If Russia, Chile and other semi-democratic states pass the tests of "legitimacy" they could be admitted.

12 posted on 03/18/2003 11:51:14 AM PST by Defiant ("I don't want to kill you, and you don't want to be dead"--Bush, to Iraq)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: theDentist
Very funny!

Harrumph!
13 posted on 03/18/2003 11:51:42 AM PST by mondonico (Peace through Superior Firepower)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: wretchard
The real danger for the UN is that is now clear to most oppressed peoples that America and not the UNSC is the court of last resort. As crises emerge around the world, the focal point of diplomacy will no longer be the UN, but Washington.

Well said. Let all those dictatorial governments out there quake in their boots, but mostly from the desire of their own people to live in a democratic society.

14 posted on 03/18/2003 11:53:50 AM PST by toddst
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: wretchard
"The real danger for the UN is that is now clear to most oppressed peoples that America and not the UNSC is the court of last resort. As crises emerge around the world, the focal point of diplomacy will no longer be the UN, but Washington."

Good point. I had not thought of it in quite this way, but after thinking about it, I'd say this is indeed a likely development.
15 posted on 03/18/2003 11:58:48 AM PST by Cap Huff
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
if a frog croaks in the forest does anyne care

snooker
16 posted on 03/18/2003 12:04:27 PM PST by snooker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
Our elected officials swear an oath to defend the US Constitution - not the un-American UN Charter.

WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Johannesburg, August 26-September 2002

The Earth Charter7

This document is meant to constitute a global ethical code for sustainable development. Mikail Gorbechov went so far as to say that it would eventually replace the 10 Commandments. After more than ten years of international dialogue on the governmental and non-governmental levels, backed primarily by the Earth Council and Green Cross International, a final version of the Earth Charter was produced in March 2000. It is to be presented to the United Nations for approval at the WSSD in Johannesburg.  Though the Earth Charter is not yet an official document, its philosophy is already pervasive in the UN and other groups.  It is also worth noting that Emil Salim, the Chair of the Bureau, is also a member of the Earth Council, which is a main promoter of the Earth Charter.  UNESCO also makes prominent reference to the Earth Charter, and has integrated it into its educational material. 

The 4 guiding principles of the Earth Charter are:  

  1. Respect Earth and life in all its diversity
  2. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.
  3. Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.
  4. Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future generations.

Towards a culture of sustainability

Conserving the environment, fostering solidarity and human rights, and eliminating poverty obviously involves changing the way people think and live. It includes not only technology, but also  values, morals, and culture in general.  

However, promoting the UN interpretation of sustainable development ultimately means substituting traditional concepts and values with new global values and new human rights. These values and rights are not only recognized by but actually based on consensus - and then later defined by the UN and its partners.  The primary right is now not the right to life, but the right to choose.


17 posted on 03/18/2003 2:22:59 PM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl ("Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard." - Pres. GW Bush)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson