[Mb-civic] Where's the Old Bolton When We Need Him? What they are saying... -- Los Angeles Times

[George R. Milman]

By Eric A. Posner and John C. Yoo

April 19, 2005

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations, once said that if the top 10 floors of the U.N. headquarters
disappeared, "it wouldn't make a bit of difference." But in hearings last
week, Bolton pledged to "forge a stronger relationship between the United
States and the United Nations" and to take "important steps to restore
confidence" in the international body. 

This kinder, gentler Bolton is exactly what the U.N. does not need. If the
U.N. is going to stop being a major impediment to multilateral cooperation
and international law, it needs the radical skepticism of the old Bolton,
the kind of skepticism that will remake it from the top down. 

By design, the U.N. inhibits multilateral action. The five permanent members
of the Security Council - Britain, France, Russia, China and the U.S. - all
have an absolute veto over authorizing military action, applying sanctions
and sending peacekeepers. Because these states rarely can reach a consensus,
the Security Council rarely acts. 

In the past, the U.S. accomplished its foreign policy goals by working
around the U.N., not through it. Washington's successful anti-Soviet
containment policy, implemented with allies as diverse as France, Germany,
Turkey and Japan, proceeded independently of the U.N. U.S.-led efforts to
stop British and French seizure of the Suez Canal and to end the
Israeli-Arab wars occurred with little help from the U.N. NATO's
intervention during the wars in the former Yugoslavia was, in large part, a
violation of the U.N. Charter.

More recently, efforts to contain North Korea, to limit conflict between
India and Pakistan, to keep the peace between Taiwan and China and to remove
Saddam Hussein have owed little or nothing to the U.N. 

Historically, then, the U.N. has been mostly irrelevant, but with the end of
the Cold War, it acquired new prestige, based mainly on the hope that the
relaxation of superpower tensions would finally allow it to act. The foreign
veto-holders on the Security Council have an interest in maintaining the
U.N.'s new popularity because it gives them a kind of equality with the U.S.
that they lack in reality.

Exploiting these rules, a single opponent can prevent action that a group
may prefer. Russia vetoed U.N. action in Kosovo. During the recent Iraq
conflict, the delay caused by seeking U.N. approval interfered with the
timetable for the invasion, and the lack of approval gave some nations a
free ride - they had an excuse for not joining the effort, a forum for
objecting to it, and yet they could still benefit from it. If the U.N.
continues its rise as a political forum for opposition to U.S. military
force, American diplomats should be marginalizing it, not strengthening it.

The U.N. also undermines the advance of international law. Its charter
outlaws war except in self-defense or with the authorization of the Security
Council - a quixotic, unenforceable rule. There have been dozens of wars
since 1945 and the U.N's birth. Pretending that nations will not engage in
war, and that the U.N. can be the world's policeman, guaranteeing the safety
of all, only breeds cynicism. It works against using international law
realistically to prevent humanitarian disasters, eliminate threats to
regional peace, and stop state supporters of terrorism.

Not every U.N.-sponsored treaty has been a failure, but it is notable that
the world's most successful treaties - GATT and the WTO, the European Union,
arms control agreements and NATO - have had little to do with the U.N. These
treaties were negotiated by states for well-defined purposes, and they have
generated clear gains even if they also involve trade-offs reflecting
balance of power realities. By contrast, the U.N. is less effective because
it is committed to an unattainable ideal of equality among states, when it
is not immobilized by the vetoes held by five of them.

The U.N.'s structure reflects post-World War II hopes that have not
materialized. As long as ordinary people continue to put faith in it, and
governments play politics through it, the U.N. can only hinder international
cooperation and the advance of international law.

The U.S. and its envoy must understand that demolition is the order of the
day - and sometimes demolition is best accomplished from within. 

 

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times 

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