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It is in the breaking news sidebar!
Posted on 04/15/2003 10:02:21 AM PDT by knighthawk
Even the bloodbath of Sept. 11 was, to America's critics, mere confirmation of America's guilt. What must it have done, they asked themselves, to provoke such an attack? Needless to say, they had no trouble answering.
The same pattern has now repeated itself with regard to the war in Iraq. Months of patient effort having proved unable to persuade the Security Council to enforce its own resolutions, the fault, naturally, lay with the Americans. Even supporters of the war like to pair this with an evenhanded lament for the "failure of diplomacy" that left the United States "isolated," alone but for the support of 49 other countries.
But as grows more clear by the day, there never was any realistic prospect of bringing France and Russia on board, notwithstanding their vote at the Security Council in favour of Resolution 1441. That the two were between them responsible for more than two-thirds of all arms sales to Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s might be redeemable, even had they not done everything they could over the years since to block efforts at the United Nations to force Iraq to disarm itself of its most horrific weaponry. But the evidence mounts that they remained implicated in Saddam Hussein's regime right up to the very outbreak of war.
Documents discovered by coalition soldiers reveal that Russia was passing on secrets to the Iraqi government in recent months, including information gleaned from wiretaps of Tony Blair's phone conversations. Other coalition finds add to earlier reports of French arms sales to Iraq in defiance of UN sanctions, even as late as last year.
This will redouble the determination of the Bush administration never to repeat the farce played out at the Security Council this spring. France has destroyed by its obstinacy the one instrument of its remaining influence. The UN will remain as a service agency, and as a clearing house of world opinion. But the prospect of the Security Council becoming a kind of world government, always remote, has now been extinguished.
The question is what will replace it. The Security Council's eclipse does not mean the end of multilateralism, for it is in America's interest as much as anyone's to have allies it can call upon in future crises. Perhaps, as some analysts have suggested, this will simply take the form of a series of ad hoc coalitions of the willing. But its allies will want to persuade the United States to enter into some more permanent arrangement.
The challenge, that is, is how to reconcile the new facts defining the post-war world -- American supremacy, and its willingness to use it pre-emptively against emerging security threats -- with the legitimate desire of other nations to be consulted, before sovereign countries are invaded and regimes deposed. The Constitution of the United States imposes its own checks and balances, but many people would have been less comfortable with the President's decision to go to war in Iraq had it not also passed muster with the British, the Spanish, the Australians and the rest. I include among those "many people" a great number of Americans.
The United States is prepared to listen, in other words, to those who have earned its trust: who have shown they mean it no ill, are prepared to work with it constructively, and have something to offer in return. The United Nations can no longer serve as an effective sounding board, for it is composed, in the main, of countries that meet none of these criteria. But another body, with a different membership, might.
I am thinking of something less like the United Nations, and more like the World Trade Organization: that is, a multilateral body, but one that imposes certain entrance requirements. These would be three: a commitment to democracy and freedom, a readiness to make a fair contribution to the common defence, and, perhaps more controversially, a willingness to recognize American leadership. Not hegemony, but leadership.
What's the difference? The same that distinguishes constitutional forms of government from all others: that balance between legitimate authority and legitimate dissent, between the leaders and the led, neither holding absolute sway over the other. It is a tempered hegemony, a bounded consent.
The position of the United States in such a body -- the Council of Free Nations has a nice ring to it -- would be akin to that of the prime minister in Cabinet, at least as classically envisaged. That is, it would be prima inter pares, first among equals, vested with a leading role yet bound by convention to act by consensus. Another comparison might be with the relationship between Parliament and the Queen. Formally, the Queen has great power. But she is constrained by custom to use this sparingly. Her authority depends on her legitimacy, and her legitimacy depends on not abusing her authority.
There is a phrase familiar from the language of contracts that might explain the sort of balancing of obligations I have in mind. Often there will be a requirement for one party to obtain the consent of the other before it can do such and such a thing. But a codicil is attached: Such consent shall not unreasonably be withheld.
Is it possible the United States would submit to such an arrangement, agreeing to consult with its allies before deploying its overwhelming military power? Yes, so long as it had some assurance that this would not be abused, à la France at the Security Council. Even a superpower, at least of the democratic variety, needs the legitimacy that comes from the consent of others, if only to justify its actions to its own people.
The more important decision lies with the other powers. Are they willing to acknowledge the reality of American supremacy? Do they see the United States as a largely benign, if fallible, force, one with whom they can work in partnership? Or are they consumed with creating "counterweights" to American power, as if in some game of 19th-century diplomacy? On this will the shape of the world depend.
acoyne@nationalpost.com
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