March 10, 2003
THE BRAYING OF THE HOUYHNHNMS:
America must not be tied by Lilliputians (Max Boot, March 9 2003, Financial Times)The war has already started: Anglo-American commandos and airplanes are now operating inside Iraq, laying the groundwork for the conventional forces that will follow soon. As President Bush made clear in his press conference last Thursday, coalition forces will act against Saddam Hussein, with or without the UN's approval.
The Security Council does not seem to have got the message. On Friday, it reconvened for another endless round of palaver over the pace of weapons inspections, presided over by the resplendently-robed foreign minister of Guinea. No doubt his countrymen would have been mighty proud of François Fall's star turn on the world stage. If only they had seen it.Unfortunately, The New York Times reports from Guinea's capital, Conakry, that "electricity is available only every fourth day, and then only between
midnight and 6am". Not that CNN would be on even if there were power for TV sets. General-turned-president Lansana Conte, who has ruled with an iron fist since 1984, strictly regulates the flow of information to his subjects.This is what the UN "process" comes down to: a country that keeps its own people in the dark, literally and figuratively, is asked to shed light on what America and Britain should do with regard to Iraq. Gaining the imprimatur of Guinea - and of such other global giants as Angola, Chile and Syria - is supposed to confer "international legitimacy" on the actions of two of the oldest and most successful democracies in the world.
That, at least, is the logic of those, such as France, Russia and China, who demand another UN resolution before Saddam Hussein is finally punished for failing to comply with the previous 17. Their sincerity in suggesting that the world body must be the final arbiter of all military actions is pretty suspect, however. France did not seek UN approval when it sent 3,000 soldiers into Ivory Coast. Russia did not seek sanction for its bulldozing of Chechnya, nor China for its brutalisation of Tibet. In private, the leaders of these nations would chortle at the notion of giving Guinea a veto over where they can send their own forces - yet they expect America to do just that.
From the standpoint of the rest of the world, there is a realpolitik logic to this: they think that the UN and other international institutions can be instruments of containing US power. "I like very much the metaphor of Gulliver, of ensnarling the giant," Jorge Castenada, Mexico's former foreign minister, explained in November. "Tying it up, with nails, with thread, with 20,000 nets that bog it down: these nets being norms, principles, resolutions, agreements, and bilateral, regional and international covenants."
If only they'd stop brobdingnagging us. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2003 7:47 PM
The old story has it that if you tie a baby elephant with a rope to a stake in the ground, it will be too weak to pull it out; and when it grows up, it will think that it is bound by the stake, and so it will not try.
These 20,000 nets are like that. Only if we think they bind us, will they.
Boot touches on the incredible fact that the only three UN sanctioned wars in history are Korea, Gulf 1, and Afghanistan. On the latter, I cannot even remember how the UN sanctioned that, but, given that 3,000 died what, ten blocks down the road from them, I guess we should all be so grateful.
But that leaves Korea and GW1 as the primary UN military actions in history. And guess which two spots on the globe are the worst threats to civilization today? What a coincidence.
And it is further worth mentioning that had the Soviets not been boycotting the UN in 1950 (something Gromyko called a catastrophic error), then even KOREA would not have been sanctioned by the UN.
That leaves Gulf War One..... and here we are, bending over backwards for the right to clean up yet another of someone else's mess.... again.
In fact, even when it finally goes along with the use of force, the UN makes it explicitly difficult for the root causes of the conflict to be addressed. Not surprisingly, you have only partial victories that allow ruthless aggressors to continue thriving.
Posted by: MG at March 11, 2003 4:07 AMEven more unfortunately, Bush -- even if he does go to war which looks more doubtful with each passing hour -- has signed onto the UN mantra of no border changes, no enmity to uncivilized religion.
He's guaranteed himself at best a partial victory even if he does act.
We'll be paying this bill over and over and over.