UN appeasers let rogues call the shots
By Stephen Blank

From all sides, pundits, officials, and all manner of intellectuals assault the United States for disdaining the United Nations, spurning inspections of Iraq, and presuming to launch a coercive unilateral crusade to make the Arab world safe for democracy. Likewise, these same critics regularly flay Washington for not having the wisdom to spurn the UN, renounce inspections of North Korea and negotiate bilaterally with Pyongyang. The inherent contradiction in these positions is never commented upon and probably the motives of each one of the above category of talking heads varies with the individual.

Nonetheless, the UN's role (or lack of a role) in the Korean crisis indicates its essential uselessness at keeping the peace either there or in Iraq. And the UN's shameful performance in these (and other recent) crises highlights the fatuity of the claims that inspectors should continue searching Iraq even though everyone knows that whatever they will find, the "do nothing" claque will find other excuses for inaction.

On Wednesday the International Atomic Energy Agency found North Korea to be in violation of its agreements with that body and referred the "Korean file" to the Security Council. Although the IAEA carefully denied any intention to recommend sanctions and claimed that it was in essence following the regulations of its official remit, the option of sanctions is now out in the open.

For its part, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to shout ever louder that it categorically rejects in advance any UN action or mediation and insists only on talking to Washington. Meanwhile Washington insists exclusively on a multinational process inside the UN. Thus we have an impasse. But this impasse is particularly revealing of some of the salient facts of life in contemporary world politics.

North Korea has now violated its agreements to suspend its nuclear program three separate times. As Nancy Soderbergh, a former official of Bill Clinton's presidential election campaign and administration, recently observed in the New York Times, the DPRK broke these agreements in 1992-93. The evidence of the current violations relating to the pursuit of nuclear weapons also dates back to the later stages of the Clinton administration when relations with Washington were improving and predate the George W Bush team's accession to office.

In other words, whatever its motives, the North Korean government is a serial violator of international treaties. The issue here is not the Bush administration's disrespect for North Korea or threats of invading it, because the violations of international accords long predated the administration's election. What is clear is that the DPRK is a habitual recidivist, ie, a rogue or outlaw state in the fullest sense. Without detailed and consistent international pressure over time, it also will probably not adhere to any agreement to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, regardless of what pundits from Beijing or Moscow tell us would happen if Washington only harkened to Pyongyang's anxieties and fears.

Yet despite the fact that North Korea openly advertises itself as an outlaw state, neither China nor Russia will confront it. Evidently both these governments fear that if they confronted North Korea their supposed influence that gives them leverage over the DPRK would disappear. In other words, this vaunted influence only exists as long as it is never used. The fact that these two governments both agree that Pyongyang will not accept any pressure upon it only indicates just who really has the leverage in these relationships, and it is neither Beijing nor Moscow. Unless coerced by the international community North Korea, like Mao Zedong's China, will eat grass or rather obligate its people to eat grass while it pursues a usable nuclear weapon and delivery systems. And what will the UN do about this systematic, regular, and overt flouting of the cornerstone of civilized international life, the doctrine that treaties must be observed? It is not hard to see that the answer is: absolutely nothing.

Here again the members of the Security Council, states charged with the greatest responsibility for upholding the international order and who habitually sound off the loudest about the critical importance of upholding the UN, show that their rhetoric is just that. The UN clearly does not want to face this issue and has been deterred by an outlaw saying that any effort made to coerce it into accepting the same principles that others live by will lead him to resort to more violence. Thus the UN validates Winston Churchill's observation that each of the appeasers of the 1930s sought to appease Adolf Hitler and the other dictators in the hope that others would be eaten before their turn came up. Alternatively, perhaps, like Mr Micawber in David Copperfield, they nervously and habitually go around saying that "something will turn up".

Unfortunately international security cannot rely on either the first or second form of appeasement. If appeasement of those who would rip apart international security continues, something will indeed turn up, but it will not be peace. Similarly with Iraq, those demanding more inspections and delays are in essence more afraid to confront the aggressor than they are to act against him, even though Iraq still has no nuclear capability. As the US phrase observes, these governments' response to international crises affecting their own interests is "let George do it". But of course, they do not want George to do it either. For them the United States is somehow the enemy, not the only force, misguided or not, that seems ready to stand up for principles of international security and order. Certainly it is obvious to any unbiased observer that the UN is utterly unwilling and unable to confront either of these aggressors of its own accord so it is a useless reed insofar as the defense of peace is concerned.

Perhaps these appeasers actually hope to gain something from their economic ties to Iraq, for as the records show, France was among the biggest violators of UN sanctions, and Russo-Chinese proliferation to Iraq, either directly or through various third parties, is a matter of record. Or perhaps these governments think that they can preserve their so-called leverage in North Korea by refusing to use it in a crisis. Either way it is clear that their actions have validated the old observation that the UN cannot do more than the members of the Security Council will let it do. But if both they and it prefer to appease aggressors rather than confront them, even peacefully, who then will defend them when their time to be eaten by their erstwhile friends comes?

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