| |
OPINION
Charades at 42nd
Street
By Stephen Blank
In
1947, Hollywood released a hit movie Miracle on 34th
Street about a man who believed that he was Santa
Claus. Were this movie to be made about the United
Nations today it might be entitled Charades on 42
Street, the location of the UN in New York. The
utter collapse of the UN and the Security Council as
effective guarantors of international peace and security
revealed in the runup to the war in Iraq continue to be
displayed for all to see. The Security Council, in
particular, continues to be a helpless organization and
merely an arena for great power maneuvering.
In
the aftermath of the war with Iraq it would make sense
to eliminate the UN sanctions on Iraq in order that the
country might begin to get back on its feet. After all,
nobody can welcome the possibility that the long-term
debilitation of Iraq generated by Saddam Hussein's
policies should continue indefinitely. Prolongation of
the sanctions could only hinder recovery and would add
immensely to the difficulties of reconstructing a viable
Iraqi state and society. No matter what anyone might
think of American policy, it is clear that a stable,
flourishing society and economy are essential to Iraq's
recovery and should be priority objectives for both the
UN and the United States.
Yet France and Russia
are both trying to block this lifting of sanctions,
claiming in a fresh burst of bare-faced hypocrisy that
sanctions must remain until inspectors ascertain whether
Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. In other
words, Paris and Moscow, having rendered the UN
incapable of effective action to prevent Iraq's efforts
to acquire weapons of mass destruction, are trying to
blackmail the US and the UN into preserving their
lucrative contracts obtained through the UN sanctions
process and to frustrate the reintegration of Iraq into
the family of nations. Their objective is simple,
forcing the US to acknowledge their power and interests
regardless of the consequences. Bleeding the Iraqis
still further is clearly of little importance to these
states. For as France's ambassador to the UN, Jean-David
Levitte, observed with regard to his government's
opposition to the war, the key issue was not the future
of Iraq but rather France's ability to find ways to
hamstring the exercise of American power.
Ironically, these new shenanigans provide an
excellent, albeit depressing, justification for
Washington's refusal to let the UN play the leading role
in Iraqi reconstruction. Clearly were that to happen
little reconstruction would take place as the operation
would become a political football whereby the main
players in the Security Council would pursue
far-reaching interests having little to do with Iraq at
the expense of Iraq's people. Moreover, they would drag
out the process while politicizing it to the point where
little or nothing would be accomplished in the way of
tangible rebuilding of Iraq. But the tendency of the
great powers and of Security Council members to use the
UN and Security Council as a stage whereupon they
orchestrate and enact great but ultimately irrelevant
dramas of world politics is also on view with regard to
North Korea's proliferation.
Here the Security
Council was obliged to act once the International Atomic
Energy Agency found Pyongyang to be in violation of its
responsibilities under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It
should be recalled that those champions of the UN,
Moscow and Beijing, jointly attacked this process,
claiming that it would do no good to bring this
particular threat to the UN, among other reasons because
North Korea would interpret sanctions as war and would
reject any pressure. In reality, Beijing brought
considerable pressure to bear on North Korea and Moscow
contributed its share. Moreover, Russian, Chinese and
North Korean rhetoric to the contrary, this pressure was
clearly instrumental in bringing Pyongyang to the
negotiating tables in Beijing for talks that start on
Wednesday.
However, for this to happen, an
elaborate Kabuki dance had to take place simultaneously
in the Security Council where Beijing managed to stall
out those proceedings so it could finalize its success
in brokering the forthcoming talks. While negotiations
over North Korean proliferation are in everyone's
interests; the procedure followed once again highlights
both the UN's impotence and the fact that it is regarded
by all the major powers as nothing more than an
instrument for the attainment of broader interests or a
stage where the spectators might be diverted while the
real business of world politics takes place offstage
away from prying eyes.
These conclusions will
undoubtedly disappoint those who believe that the UN can
effectively contribute to international peace and
security. But these are hardly new revelations of the
inutility of the Security Council as a place whereby
such decisions can be made, and more importantly
enforced. The impotence and incoherence of the Security
Council go back a long way. Nevertheless, the lesson for
the UN, as for many other institutions created during
the Cold War, is clear - reform or die. But until that
lesson sinks in on the bureaucracy at 42 Street and
until it becomes an interest of the great powers that
the UN be truly effective rather than a platform for
charades, we should not hold our breath waiting for the
players in the current farce to change the game or its
rules.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
PA.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
