Palestinian Authority jefe grande Abbas has tossed down the gauntlet to Barack Obama and the rest of his "foreign policy team." The PA will seek full membership in the UN as a sovereign state Abbas declared in a highly reported speech to his fellow countrymen.
This move seems to be a very severe defeat for both Israel and the Obama administration. The Netanyahu ministry has done everything short of declaring war on the PA. The Obama "team" including the president has not been much more restrained, threatening (or promising, if you prefer) to veto the move when it comes before the Security Council for action.
A veto would not be looked at with favor in the Arab states generally as was made palpably clear in a recent op-ed piece in the WaPo by one of those interminable Saudi princes and diplomatic heavyweights. Participants in outdoor sports favored by the "Arab Street" such as riots and suicide bombings will be much less restrained in their disapprobation.
Advocates of realpolitik have noted that even admission to the UN either as a state or a state observer will change nothing for the better on the ground. There is much to justify this view. Likewise there is much to support the dystopian notions that the Palestinians will use either state observer or state status to cause a world of hurt for Israel in the assorted UN sub-agencies and the International Criminal Court.
The pessimistic interpretations do not, however, merit the US using its veto power in the Security Council. Doing such would only assure the PA would take its petition to the General Assembly in search of the consolation prize of state observer status, which would give it all the trouble making possibilities along with assuring a very large can would be tied to Uncle Sam's tail.
A far better course of action for the Obama administration to take is that of delay. The process established for seeking recognition as a state by the UN provides an almost infinite mechanism of creative stalling. The formal request must first go to the Secretary General. The Secretary General does not have to handle the matter instantly but can request further information before forwarding the request to the Security Council. Doing this can take weeks--or months.
The Security Council can also demand more information as well as proof that the proposed Palestinian state meets all the diplomatic requirements for state status. This means the Council can find itself caught in a set of hearings and debates over the degree to which the Palestinian Authority and the territory under its purported control does in fact constitute a fully functioning state. Given the deep and growing divide between the West Bank based Palestinian Authority and its rival in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, and the fiction that Palestine constitutes a single entity, this could lead to a number of second thoughts within chanceries seemingly committed to the idea of Palestinian statehood.
A full fledged inquiry and debate within the Security Council could even have the potential to undercut any move in the General Assembly for state observer status. This is not a nontrivial benefit given the uncertainty and ambiguity extant within the European Union for this gambit. The US might even enlist the cooperation of Russia in seeking a complete airing of whether or not the Palestinian state really exists by quietly noting that any approval by either the Security Council or the General Assembly would constitute a bad precedent from the Kremlin's point of view considering the current ethnic and religious unrest in the Northern Caucasus. The name, "Tibet," whispered in certain ears might elicit a reasonably favorable response from Beijing.
The point is the US could lobby effectively for a prolonged inquiry by the Security Council, which would buy that most precious of commodities--time--for bilateral diplomacy to make another run at the moribund "peace process" between Israel and the PA. Abbas would have his political posterior covered enough to keep him in his tenuous position for some while since he would have delivered on his promises and cannot be held personally responsible for UN protocol.
Sure there would still be some riots, some bombings, some threats of worse from the "Arab Street" and other usual Muslim suspects such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, but what else is to be expected? The US would be spared the major problems which exercise of the veto would bring.
The Israelis, or at least some of them, would not be thrilled but, again, what else would you expect? A delay might allow calmer heads (assuming there are any) around Netanyahu to provide sound counsel respecting the recommencement of talks with Abbas and company. There is even the faint prospect that the Obama administration might find the right magic to convince Netanyahu to wake up to the new and alarming political realities in his neighborhood, realities which cannot be addressed by simple words and the implied threat of Israeli military displeasure.
A delay would benefit all interested parties. A veto would not. It looks like a no-brainer. Of course, being the simplest and safest way to go means it is not acceptable to either the Deep Thinkers or the ideologues who populate too much of the foreign policy world, not only here but everywhere.
Showing posts with label General Assembly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Assembly. Show all posts
Friday, September 16, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Becoming A State Isn't Enough To Bring Peace
There is no doubt that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can usher a state called "Palestine" into existence. There is nothing magical nor even particularly difficult about achieving the status of "state." Even the longest standing, most broadly accepted basic definition of statehood, The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which dates back to 1933, establishes rather minimal requirements for state status.
The Montevideo Convention provides only four prerequisites. (1) A permanent population, (2) A defined territory, (3) A government, and (4) The capacity to enter into relations with other states. In practice these requirements have been further reduced. As a practical matter, a state can be said to exist when other states say it does.
Even when territorial limits are hazy, poorly defined or still in the process of being determined, an established state has the sovereign right to declare another entity has achieved the same status. This is also the case when a government is not fully formed, fledged, or functioning. All that is necessary is that other states recognize the new kid on the block. The recognition need not be universal. Nor does the new state need the recognition of any or all of the Great Powers to come into full, legal form.
History is full of examples of states being recognized long before they had achieved either defined borders or a fully functional government. (Recall that the US falls into this category.) History is also replete with examples of states and governments which were widely but not universally recognized or lacked recognition and acceptance by one or more of the contemporary Great Powers. (The US non-recognition of the Bolshevik regime in Russia or that of Mao in China did not make these two states sudden nonentities.)
A state need not be contiguous (pace Constitutional law professor and president Barack Obama) to be both recognized and viable. At its creation Pakistan consisted of two parts separated by more than a thousand kilometers of India. It was both recognized and (until the fruits of Punjabi racism and Islamabad's inefficiency matured) viable. Pakistan existed with its two disparate components because enough other states said it did.
To make it simple but without undue simplification: States come into existence when enough other states recognize its existence and enter into relations with it. That's all, folks. There is no need for UN action. While the General Assembly upon recommendation of the Security Council can extend membership to a new state, this is not required for the state to exist as both independent and sovereign.
All of this brings us back to Palestine. An increasing number of countries ranging from Brazil to Russia have extended some form of diplomatic recognition to the territory of Palestine as governed by the PA. As this tide gains force, it can be expected that most of the current membership of the UN will do likewise regardless of the well-intended but quite irrelevant counsel of President Obama.
By the old standards of diplomacy, this should mean that Palestine would come into existence as an independent and sovereign state. But, the old norms do not apply. There are two constraints which taken together render the old way inapplicable in this case. One of these is the Oslo Accords, which formed an agreement between Fatah and Israel. The PA is not mentioned. It couldn't be--it did not exist at the time. Nor was Hamas referenced. Only Fatah and Israel.
The sundry agreements which fall under the appellation of the frosty Norwegian capital sharply limit the ability of the PA to exercise jurisdiction over territory and persons alike. The Oslo agreements served to place the Palestinian territory under an ongoing form of Israeli suzerainty. To a major extent, the effect of the Oslo agreements was to put a diplomatic and political gloss on an underlying brute fact.
The brute fact was (and is) the Israeli occupation. Even if the territorial extent of full Israeli occupation has been reduced over the years, it still exists as the rock upon which the independence and sovereignty of the PA must founder.
The combination of the Oslo agreement and the fact of ongoing Israeli occupation renders the past experience with the process by which states come into existence nugatory. This dreary reality is well understood and publicly accepted by PA officials. They know that even if every country on the face of the globe extends diplomatic recognition, this will not change realities on the ground--as long as the US does not do the same.
Israel's stance in comparison is not central. There are precedents of states and governments receiving full diplomatic recognition even though they were under full or partial military occupation. Indeed, that was a key principle underlying the political integrity of governments-in-exile during World War II. It can be argued that by failing to end its long condemned occupation, Israel has created a Palestinian version of a government-in-exile which has a legitimate claim on the international community for aid in regaining its (temporarily) lost land.
The PA (particularly if Hamas is left out of the picture somehow) has a good case for UN intervention based on both the government-in-exile precedents and international law generally. Assuming the UN General Assembly took some sort of action equivalent to extending full membership to the PA controlled Palestine, so as to duck any US veto in the Security Council, would it really matter with respect to the larger and more important question--peace?
The short answer is no. An independent Palestine would still have to deal directly with Israel regarding all the critical matters such as borders, land swaps, an Israeli military presence in the Jordan valley, the status of Jerusalem, and the return of Arab refugees. These matters would be no less contentious and vexing should Palestine become an independent state than they are right now.
The best which could be asserted about potential benefits to the PA is it would have some additional diplomatic leverage. As an independent state Palestine could be more effective in opposing additional growth in the Israeli "settlements." As an independent state Palestine could sign on to the Statute of Rome giving it the right to seek prosecution of purported Israeli war criminals before the International Criminal Court. This threat would have great leverage in and of itself.
A well coordinated use of mass mobilization of Palestinians in a move on the Israeli Wall and checkpoints along with diplomacy could bring about the desired UN action without US support. Indeed, it is hard to see how the combination of non-violent mass action and diplomacy could be openly opposed by the Obama administration given the coming of the next election.
The reconciliation between the PA and Hamas has shored up the political base of Abbas. Now if he and his fellows can show a modicum of smarts in orchestrating global opinion and the photogenic appeal of a series of totally non-violent marches on the Great Wall of (specious) Security behind which Israel cowers, he can pull off the coup of the decade--and mousetrap the Obama "team."
The record of the Palestinians in the theater of global politics and the realities of international diplomacy has more often than not been one of dismal incompetence and self-inflicted defeats. But, sometimes all it takes is one successful attempt at swinging for the fence. This time Abbas may do it with the result that Palestine will come into existence.
But, this may well not lead to peace. And, one cannot expect the Palestinians to make it two-for-two. That would take Elohim and Allah working in perfect harmony. Anyone want to make a bet?
The Montevideo Convention provides only four prerequisites. (1) A permanent population, (2) A defined territory, (3) A government, and (4) The capacity to enter into relations with other states. In practice these requirements have been further reduced. As a practical matter, a state can be said to exist when other states say it does.
Even when territorial limits are hazy, poorly defined or still in the process of being determined, an established state has the sovereign right to declare another entity has achieved the same status. This is also the case when a government is not fully formed, fledged, or functioning. All that is necessary is that other states recognize the new kid on the block. The recognition need not be universal. Nor does the new state need the recognition of any or all of the Great Powers to come into full, legal form.
History is full of examples of states being recognized long before they had achieved either defined borders or a fully functional government. (Recall that the US falls into this category.) History is also replete with examples of states and governments which were widely but not universally recognized or lacked recognition and acceptance by one or more of the contemporary Great Powers. (The US non-recognition of the Bolshevik regime in Russia or that of Mao in China did not make these two states sudden nonentities.)
A state need not be contiguous (pace Constitutional law professor and president Barack Obama) to be both recognized and viable. At its creation Pakistan consisted of two parts separated by more than a thousand kilometers of India. It was both recognized and (until the fruits of Punjabi racism and Islamabad's inefficiency matured) viable. Pakistan existed with its two disparate components because enough other states said it did.
To make it simple but without undue simplification: States come into existence when enough other states recognize its existence and enter into relations with it. That's all, folks. There is no need for UN action. While the General Assembly upon recommendation of the Security Council can extend membership to a new state, this is not required for the state to exist as both independent and sovereign.
All of this brings us back to Palestine. An increasing number of countries ranging from Brazil to Russia have extended some form of diplomatic recognition to the territory of Palestine as governed by the PA. As this tide gains force, it can be expected that most of the current membership of the UN will do likewise regardless of the well-intended but quite irrelevant counsel of President Obama.
By the old standards of diplomacy, this should mean that Palestine would come into existence as an independent and sovereign state. But, the old norms do not apply. There are two constraints which taken together render the old way inapplicable in this case. One of these is the Oslo Accords, which formed an agreement between Fatah and Israel. The PA is not mentioned. It couldn't be--it did not exist at the time. Nor was Hamas referenced. Only Fatah and Israel.
The sundry agreements which fall under the appellation of the frosty Norwegian capital sharply limit the ability of the PA to exercise jurisdiction over territory and persons alike. The Oslo agreements served to place the Palestinian territory under an ongoing form of Israeli suzerainty. To a major extent, the effect of the Oslo agreements was to put a diplomatic and political gloss on an underlying brute fact.
The brute fact was (and is) the Israeli occupation. Even if the territorial extent of full Israeli occupation has been reduced over the years, it still exists as the rock upon which the independence and sovereignty of the PA must founder.
The combination of the Oslo agreement and the fact of ongoing Israeli occupation renders the past experience with the process by which states come into existence nugatory. This dreary reality is well understood and publicly accepted by PA officials. They know that even if every country on the face of the globe extends diplomatic recognition, this will not change realities on the ground--as long as the US does not do the same.
Israel's stance in comparison is not central. There are precedents of states and governments receiving full diplomatic recognition even though they were under full or partial military occupation. Indeed, that was a key principle underlying the political integrity of governments-in-exile during World War II. It can be argued that by failing to end its long condemned occupation, Israel has created a Palestinian version of a government-in-exile which has a legitimate claim on the international community for aid in regaining its (temporarily) lost land.
The PA (particularly if Hamas is left out of the picture somehow) has a good case for UN intervention based on both the government-in-exile precedents and international law generally. Assuming the UN General Assembly took some sort of action equivalent to extending full membership to the PA controlled Palestine, so as to duck any US veto in the Security Council, would it really matter with respect to the larger and more important question--peace?
The short answer is no. An independent Palestine would still have to deal directly with Israel regarding all the critical matters such as borders, land swaps, an Israeli military presence in the Jordan valley, the status of Jerusalem, and the return of Arab refugees. These matters would be no less contentious and vexing should Palestine become an independent state than they are right now.
The best which could be asserted about potential benefits to the PA is it would have some additional diplomatic leverage. As an independent state Palestine could be more effective in opposing additional growth in the Israeli "settlements." As an independent state Palestine could sign on to the Statute of Rome giving it the right to seek prosecution of purported Israeli war criminals before the International Criminal Court. This threat would have great leverage in and of itself.
A well coordinated use of mass mobilization of Palestinians in a move on the Israeli Wall and checkpoints along with diplomacy could bring about the desired UN action without US support. Indeed, it is hard to see how the combination of non-violent mass action and diplomacy could be openly opposed by the Obama administration given the coming of the next election.
The reconciliation between the PA and Hamas has shored up the political base of Abbas. Now if he and his fellows can show a modicum of smarts in orchestrating global opinion and the photogenic appeal of a series of totally non-violent marches on the Great Wall of (specious) Security behind which Israel cowers, he can pull off the coup of the decade--and mousetrap the Obama "team."
The record of the Palestinians in the theater of global politics and the realities of international diplomacy has more often than not been one of dismal incompetence and self-inflicted defeats. But, sometimes all it takes is one successful attempt at swinging for the fence. This time Abbas may do it with the result that Palestine will come into existence.
But, this may well not lead to peace. And, one cannot expect the Palestinians to make it two-for-two. That would take Elohim and Allah working in perfect harmony. Anyone want to make a bet?
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Happy Birthday, UN--Now It's Time To Retire You
The United Nations was "born" sixty-five years ago in an impressive ceremony held in San Francisco. Like other things created in San Francisco, the Vigilantes, Beat poetry, Hippie, the UN seemed like a good idea at the time but far outlived its usefulness--or humor potential.
Sixty-five is a good age for retirement--outside of France, Greece, and other contemporary enclaves of workers who do not like to work. It is certainly a good age for the UN to shuffle off, collect its FICA, put on lime green pants and a clashing shirt so better to develop proficiency at golf. Maybe do a little bit of travelling before finally settling down in Del Webb's Sun City to watch the sunset on the "golden years."
When the UN was born, it was, as is the case with all babies, small. Its small size helped to assure that the majority of the nations proclaiming their united nature shared a wide variety of political, social, and economic norms and values. With the exception of the Soviet Union, the Arab states, and some Latin American countries, the membership of the UN was democratic in its politics, liberal in social values, and essentially free enterprise in economic theory. With the same exceptions, the UN members shared a commitment to the freedom and dignity of the individual, tolerated a wide spectrum of dissent in speech and press, and loathed force as an instrument of internal or international politics.
The UN was created with a view to precluding the sort of stasis which had rendered the overly idealistic League of Nations from either protecting international peace or punishing those states which broke the peace. But, the UN was afflicted by its own idealism. This time around, the idealism was predicated upon a total misreading of the "alliance" which had defeated the Germany of Hitler and the imperialists of Japan.
To the misfortune of generations yet unborn, the celebrants in San Francisco deluded themselves into believing that the wartime "partners" of the US--the UK, China, the Soviet Union, and France--would continue forward in amity and cooperation for the common good. This exercise in willful self-delusion should have been impossible even in 1945, even before the ink was dry on the surrender instruments ending the greatest conflict in human history.
The USSR had already demonstrated an unlimited appetite for land in eastern Europe, the result of having been invaded and the concomitant desire to have a protective glacis when the next invasion came. The paranoia of Stalin had been evident on numerous occasions during the war--and showed no signs of abating.
China was in the midst of an offensive insurgency in which the Communists were exhibiting will and ability far greater than that of the central government. The probability of China staying under the same Nationalist regime was slim to none. Beyond that, the Chinese had played no useful role in defeating the Japanese regardless of what President Roosevelt or the later "China Lobby" might have wished. It was not a Great Power and did not deserve membership in the Security Council, the body created in order to preclude the stasis which had marked the League of Nations.
France was not a Great Power either except in the minds of Frenchmen. It was a defeated colonial power which hoped to restore its lost grandeur by repossessing its old colonies in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Beyond that, France had played only a marginal role in ending the Nazis, regardless of myths to the contrary.
The UK was a Great Power. However, it is was a fatally exhausted one. Its days of Empire and glory were as gone as those of the French. Still, the UK had carried great freight in the early days of despair and defeat so as to lay the way for eventual victory.
The US was indisputably the Great Power of the day. Unlike the Soviet Union which had been bled white by the war, the US was intact in all respects. And, the US had the Bomb. While few in the know expected the comfortable monopoly would last long, at the moment, sixty-five years ago, it was an overwhelming reality.
The US, however, had a fatal weakness. Ironically the weakness also reflected a great strength of the country as well. We were a nation of idealists at the time of the sign-and-grin ceremony in San Francisco's opera house. We did believe in the goodness of humankind. We did believe that the combination of our Bomb and the new UN would assure a golden age of peace.
Besides, we wanted to get back to "normalcy." The Great Depression and the war had combined to rob Americans of fifteen years of our great dream of prosperity and the goodies which come with that desired state. Idealistic materialists, we were happy to demobilize and give peace a chance under the baby blue flag of the near fiction called the United Nations.
Those were halcyon days, sixty-five years ago. Unfortunately, the grim, grey, and barren wastes of reality quickly intruded. The UN almost failed its first major test of its self-defined main mission--preserving the international peace and punishing those who broke it by aggression. Had it not been for the absence of the Soviet Union which was boycotting the Security Council over that body's refusal to seat the new Chinese Communists in lieu of the Nationalists who by 1950 ruled only the island of Taiwan, there would have been no UN call to end the North Korean invasion of the South. The US would have been denied the international support so necessary to fight an unpopular war in a very distant land.
Moscow never made the same mistake again. As a result, the Soviet delegate was always in his chair eager to veto any attempt to involve the UN in punishing international aggressors. The UN was conspicuous by its absence in the many, many wars which merrily went on during the long decades of the Cold War.
The only other time the Security Council actually tried to execute its major mission--preservation of international peace and punishing international aggressor--was in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Chinese abstained. Their reason for not vetoing the resolution was simple, crass self-interest. The Trolls of Beijing calculated that future prosperity under their program of "market reforms" depended upon penetrating the American market. A veto would make sure such would be impossible.
The success of the Chinese economically now assures that they will not make the same calculation again. They now feel secure to veto any Security Council measure which might impinge on their economic and diplomatic interests anywhere in the world.
In short, the UN Security Council will revert to the same stasis which marked it during the Cold War albeit as the consequences of a different dynamic. Potential aggressors--provided they are useful to the Trolls or, in other cases, the Kremlin--can be sure the UN Security Council will be the most toothless of tigers.
As if to make up for the failure in the area of preserving the international peace, the UN has engaged in an orgy of mission creep. The UN has come to the more than simply dubious conclusion that it can involve itself in the internal affairs of a state if those affairs serve to threaten the international peace by way of, for example, generating refugees or, another example, tromping on the "human rights" of its citizens. Of course both of these are highly subjective and thus suitable to manipulation according to the diplomatic considerations of one or more of the Big Five on the Security Council.
Much of the UN mission creep has been powered by the General Assembly. In the "one country, one vote" milieu of the General Assembly, the potency of regional interest groups--or, religious interest groups as is the case with the Arab League dominated Organization of the Islamic Council--can and have controlled the direction and actions of the huge, unwieldy body.
At this point, it is necessary to stop and reflect on a foundation truth regarding the General Assembly. The majority of the members are small, often artificial states, with a dubious economic base and only the most vague of commitments to either democracy or the notion of a rule of law. In this, the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly as well as the subsidiary organizations of the UN, such as the Human Rights Council, do not share the norms, values, or goals of the countries present in San Francisco sixty-five years ago.
It also means the majority of the UN membership does not share the norms, values, or ideals of the vast majority of We the People. Even though We the People pony up twenty-five percent of the UN's annual budget and more than that when the notoriously unsuccessful "peacekeeping" missions or subsidiary organizations are considered, the truth remains--we are subsiding a profoundly un-American bunch.
Sporadic efforts to "reform" the corrupt and inefficient UN bureaucracy have failed miserably. They will continue to fail as the culture has become both too deeply embedded and wide spread to admit of any meaningful reform. Even the (temporary) withholding of American dues proved ineffective in countering even the worse and most evident of UN financial abuses. Of course, it didn't help when a change in administrations brought with it a change in policy.
The same dynamic can be seen in microcosmic form with the US rejoining the Human Rights Council. This well-intended to "bore from within" has failed. The HRC is just as biased, just as anti-Israel, just as anti-US now as it was when we were on the outside.
The time has come to do a reappraisal of our relation with the UN. It is a hopeless captive of states which do not share the ideals, the norms, the values, the goals of sixty-five years ago. The bureaucracy of the Secretariat as well as most (but not all) of the subsidiaries have failed in its obligation to keep the international peace or punish international aggressors while creating ever more expansive missions and seeking ever greater power over the economic, political, and social spheres of member states.
It is hard to admit failure. It is hardest to admit that institutions created by the best of values, the most noble of motives, and highest of ideals have failed--failed continuously and totally. It is particularly hard to admit that an institution that has existed longer than most Americans have lived is a miserable failure.
But, our interests as well as the interests of people living in all the civilized and many not-so-civilized states demand we acknowledge the failure of the UN. So also do the interests of our descendants. The lives of children not yet born will be affected by our failure to deal with the failure of the UN.
Now is the time to take a long look at what is necessary for an effective international institution. History shows that the most important single factor is the sharing of norms, values, and imperatives. At the least, any international institution worthy of support is one where the members are truly democratic, truly committed to the freedom, dignity, and rights of the individual, truly subscribers to free enterprise in one of its many variants. An institution deserving of the support of We the People is one committed to freedom of expression, freedom of religious practice, and separation between the state and the communities of faith.
States which are suitable for such an international body exist all around the world. They do not include Muslim majority states with very few exceptions. Nor do they include authoritarian states with a thin veneer of democratic processes. Nor do they include states where the rule of law consists of the current desires or political/economic needs of the elite.
Sure this means any new "League of the Decent" will be small, perhaps no larger than the hopeful group assembled in San Francisco sixty-five years ago. That is no bar. Sometimes the hackneyed line. "smaller is better" is the greatest of truths.
Sixty-five is a good age for retirement--outside of France, Greece, and other contemporary enclaves of workers who do not like to work. It is certainly a good age for the UN to shuffle off, collect its FICA, put on lime green pants and a clashing shirt so better to develop proficiency at golf. Maybe do a little bit of travelling before finally settling down in Del Webb's Sun City to watch the sunset on the "golden years."
When the UN was born, it was, as is the case with all babies, small. Its small size helped to assure that the majority of the nations proclaiming their united nature shared a wide variety of political, social, and economic norms and values. With the exception of the Soviet Union, the Arab states, and some Latin American countries, the membership of the UN was democratic in its politics, liberal in social values, and essentially free enterprise in economic theory. With the same exceptions, the UN members shared a commitment to the freedom and dignity of the individual, tolerated a wide spectrum of dissent in speech and press, and loathed force as an instrument of internal or international politics.
The UN was created with a view to precluding the sort of stasis which had rendered the overly idealistic League of Nations from either protecting international peace or punishing those states which broke the peace. But, the UN was afflicted by its own idealism. This time around, the idealism was predicated upon a total misreading of the "alliance" which had defeated the Germany of Hitler and the imperialists of Japan.
To the misfortune of generations yet unborn, the celebrants in San Francisco deluded themselves into believing that the wartime "partners" of the US--the UK, China, the Soviet Union, and France--would continue forward in amity and cooperation for the common good. This exercise in willful self-delusion should have been impossible even in 1945, even before the ink was dry on the surrender instruments ending the greatest conflict in human history.
The USSR had already demonstrated an unlimited appetite for land in eastern Europe, the result of having been invaded and the concomitant desire to have a protective glacis when the next invasion came. The paranoia of Stalin had been evident on numerous occasions during the war--and showed no signs of abating.
China was in the midst of an offensive insurgency in which the Communists were exhibiting will and ability far greater than that of the central government. The probability of China staying under the same Nationalist regime was slim to none. Beyond that, the Chinese had played no useful role in defeating the Japanese regardless of what President Roosevelt or the later "China Lobby" might have wished. It was not a Great Power and did not deserve membership in the Security Council, the body created in order to preclude the stasis which had marked the League of Nations.
France was not a Great Power either except in the minds of Frenchmen. It was a defeated colonial power which hoped to restore its lost grandeur by repossessing its old colonies in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Beyond that, France had played only a marginal role in ending the Nazis, regardless of myths to the contrary.
The UK was a Great Power. However, it is was a fatally exhausted one. Its days of Empire and glory were as gone as those of the French. Still, the UK had carried great freight in the early days of despair and defeat so as to lay the way for eventual victory.
The US was indisputably the Great Power of the day. Unlike the Soviet Union which had been bled white by the war, the US was intact in all respects. And, the US had the Bomb. While few in the know expected the comfortable monopoly would last long, at the moment, sixty-five years ago, it was an overwhelming reality.
The US, however, had a fatal weakness. Ironically the weakness also reflected a great strength of the country as well. We were a nation of idealists at the time of the sign-and-grin ceremony in San Francisco's opera house. We did believe in the goodness of humankind. We did believe that the combination of our Bomb and the new UN would assure a golden age of peace.
Besides, we wanted to get back to "normalcy." The Great Depression and the war had combined to rob Americans of fifteen years of our great dream of prosperity and the goodies which come with that desired state. Idealistic materialists, we were happy to demobilize and give peace a chance under the baby blue flag of the near fiction called the United Nations.
Those were halcyon days, sixty-five years ago. Unfortunately, the grim, grey, and barren wastes of reality quickly intruded. The UN almost failed its first major test of its self-defined main mission--preserving the international peace and punishing those who broke it by aggression. Had it not been for the absence of the Soviet Union which was boycotting the Security Council over that body's refusal to seat the new Chinese Communists in lieu of the Nationalists who by 1950 ruled only the island of Taiwan, there would have been no UN call to end the North Korean invasion of the South. The US would have been denied the international support so necessary to fight an unpopular war in a very distant land.
Moscow never made the same mistake again. As a result, the Soviet delegate was always in his chair eager to veto any attempt to involve the UN in punishing international aggressors. The UN was conspicuous by its absence in the many, many wars which merrily went on during the long decades of the Cold War.
The only other time the Security Council actually tried to execute its major mission--preservation of international peace and punishing international aggressor--was in the wake of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Chinese abstained. Their reason for not vetoing the resolution was simple, crass self-interest. The Trolls of Beijing calculated that future prosperity under their program of "market reforms" depended upon penetrating the American market. A veto would make sure such would be impossible.
The success of the Chinese economically now assures that they will not make the same calculation again. They now feel secure to veto any Security Council measure which might impinge on their economic and diplomatic interests anywhere in the world.
In short, the UN Security Council will revert to the same stasis which marked it during the Cold War albeit as the consequences of a different dynamic. Potential aggressors--provided they are useful to the Trolls or, in other cases, the Kremlin--can be sure the UN Security Council will be the most toothless of tigers.
As if to make up for the failure in the area of preserving the international peace, the UN has engaged in an orgy of mission creep. The UN has come to the more than simply dubious conclusion that it can involve itself in the internal affairs of a state if those affairs serve to threaten the international peace by way of, for example, generating refugees or, another example, tromping on the "human rights" of its citizens. Of course both of these are highly subjective and thus suitable to manipulation according to the diplomatic considerations of one or more of the Big Five on the Security Council.
Much of the UN mission creep has been powered by the General Assembly. In the "one country, one vote" milieu of the General Assembly, the potency of regional interest groups--or, religious interest groups as is the case with the Arab League dominated Organization of the Islamic Council--can and have controlled the direction and actions of the huge, unwieldy body.
At this point, it is necessary to stop and reflect on a foundation truth regarding the General Assembly. The majority of the members are small, often artificial states, with a dubious economic base and only the most vague of commitments to either democracy or the notion of a rule of law. In this, the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly as well as the subsidiary organizations of the UN, such as the Human Rights Council, do not share the norms, values, or goals of the countries present in San Francisco sixty-five years ago.
It also means the majority of the UN membership does not share the norms, values, or ideals of the vast majority of We the People. Even though We the People pony up twenty-five percent of the UN's annual budget and more than that when the notoriously unsuccessful "peacekeeping" missions or subsidiary organizations are considered, the truth remains--we are subsiding a profoundly un-American bunch.
Sporadic efforts to "reform" the corrupt and inefficient UN bureaucracy have failed miserably. They will continue to fail as the culture has become both too deeply embedded and wide spread to admit of any meaningful reform. Even the (temporary) withholding of American dues proved ineffective in countering even the worse and most evident of UN financial abuses. Of course, it didn't help when a change in administrations brought with it a change in policy.
The same dynamic can be seen in microcosmic form with the US rejoining the Human Rights Council. This well-intended to "bore from within" has failed. The HRC is just as biased, just as anti-Israel, just as anti-US now as it was when we were on the outside.
The time has come to do a reappraisal of our relation with the UN. It is a hopeless captive of states which do not share the ideals, the norms, the values, the goals of sixty-five years ago. The bureaucracy of the Secretariat as well as most (but not all) of the subsidiaries have failed in its obligation to keep the international peace or punish international aggressors while creating ever more expansive missions and seeking ever greater power over the economic, political, and social spheres of member states.
It is hard to admit failure. It is hardest to admit that institutions created by the best of values, the most noble of motives, and highest of ideals have failed--failed continuously and totally. It is particularly hard to admit that an institution that has existed longer than most Americans have lived is a miserable failure.
But, our interests as well as the interests of people living in all the civilized and many not-so-civilized states demand we acknowledge the failure of the UN. So also do the interests of our descendants. The lives of children not yet born will be affected by our failure to deal with the failure of the UN.
Now is the time to take a long look at what is necessary for an effective international institution. History shows that the most important single factor is the sharing of norms, values, and imperatives. At the least, any international institution worthy of support is one where the members are truly democratic, truly committed to the freedom, dignity, and rights of the individual, truly subscribers to free enterprise in one of its many variants. An institution deserving of the support of We the People is one committed to freedom of expression, freedom of religious practice, and separation between the state and the communities of faith.
States which are suitable for such an international body exist all around the world. They do not include Muslim majority states with very few exceptions. Nor do they include authoritarian states with a thin veneer of democratic processes. Nor do they include states where the rule of law consists of the current desires or political/economic needs of the elite.
Sure this means any new "League of the Decent" will be small, perhaps no larger than the hopeful group assembled in San Francisco sixty-five years ago. That is no bar. Sometimes the hackneyed line. "smaller is better" is the greatest of truths.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Be Careful What You Wish For--Particularly From The UN
The Palestinian Authority has been making noises about going to the UN General Assembly and demanding that body create an independent Palestine with the borders extant before the Six Day War of 1967. This move may seem appropriate given that it is widely believed the UN General Assembly created an independent Israel with Resolution 181on 29 November 1947, What the UN did once, it is argued, the UN can do again.
There is only one problem with this contention. It is wrong. The General Assembly did not create Israel with Resolution 181.
The resolution accepted the recommendations of the UN Special Committee On Palestine (UNSCOP) including a partition of the old British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Arab, the other Jewish. Overlooking the actual population differential in the Mandate which favored the Arabs by better than two to one or the land ownership pattern which showed Arabs owned over three quarters of the land with Jews holding less than ten percent, the UNSCOP report assigned fifty-five percent of the total area to the proposed Jewish state. The Resolution kicked the details of creating the two states to the Security Council.
The UNSCOP report and the General Assembly action did violate the long standing and often invoked principle of self-determination which had been a hallmark of US policy put forth by Woodrow Wilson as part of the armistice and peace treaty ending World War I. This troubled a number of observers both overseas and in the US but was overshadowed by the horrors of Nazi policy which had become a staple of the news during the preceding year.
The debate over the UNSCOP report and Resolution 181 did not focus on self-determination so much as it did the legality under the UN Charter of the Security Council or General Assembly creating countries by fiat. The Soviet Union protested that action such as that proposed for Palestine violated the Charter. This posture was adopted by Syria as well. Other countries saw matters the same way. Many of the ten abstentions and thirteen negative votes were predicated upon the concern that the resolution as well as any consequent Security Council actions would violate the charter, would confer upon the UN the undesirable status of "world government."
The US position as stated rather forcibly by Ambassador Warren Austin was that the Charter did not empower the Security Council to use force to implement a political settlement--even one instituted by the Security Council. In point of fact the American position was an accurate reading of the Charter. The coincidence that the US interpretation paralleled the view of the Arab Higher Council (as the several Arab states called their coordinating body) was unintended. The US had no political ax to grind in the Palestinian question. That would come later.
The Security Council was apprised repeatedly that any attempt to impose a partition on Palestine would result in a "breech of the peace." There is a large dose of irony in this: The Security Council had as its primary task the prevention of breeches of the international peace, but in any attempt to partition Palestine, it would be causing the breech. Delegations from Latin America, Europe, and the Arab Higher Council all warned that violence would be inevitable.
Given the warnings it would have been prudential to say the least if the Security Council moved first to create an international peace keeping force before even considering a change in the status of Palestine. An alternative which was urged by several states was a referral of the matter to the International Court. Neither of these courses of action were followed. Instead the Security Council kicked the can down the road on 5 March 1948.
By this time Resolution 181 had been rendered nugatory by the realities on the ground. War had broken out. The UN shifted its emphasis from create-a-state to find-a-truce. The US supported armistice efforts provided they were "without prejudice" to the claims of either Jews or Arabs. This was the most realistic position even though it almost guaranteed the war would continue until at least one if not both sides reached exhaustion. Then, and only then, could the process of creating states be undertaken.
And, that is how it played out. The ill-advised, emotionally driven acts of UNSCOP, and the General Assembly joined with the week-kneed position of the Security Council and the sheer ineptitude of the Arabs to hand over the Palestine Question to the gods of war. When the shooting finally stopped at the end of the second round of fighting, the new state of Israel had even more land than provided by the generous UNSCOP plan, and the Arabs had nothing.
Ever since then the Arab states as well as the Palestinians have tried to reverse the verdict rendered on the battlefield. Finally, after years of self-defeating war, terrorism, and diplomacy now worthy of the name, the PA has hit on a new paradigm. The new approach relies upon delegitimizing Israel in the eyes, not of the world, not even of the majority of the world's people, but of the elites of Western Europe and the US. In this context, the PA hoped that the new American president would carry the heavy freight of pressuring Israel into accepting a settlement far less than the best.
The American gambit has not paid off yet. As a result the PA has brought the new arrow from the quiver. The new arrow has a multi-bladed point, but each blade depends upon an international organization for its lethal sharpness.
One blade consists of the International Criminal Court where the PA is seeking de jure recognition as a state, ostensibly so that it might prefer war crimes charges against Israeli officials and military personnel but substantially so that it might claim to be a sovereign state already in existence. This would power up its demands for UN recognition of statehood.
Another, even sharper blade, is the UN General Assembly itself. The PA may well seek an new version of Resolution 181 which creates Palestine qua Palestine. The UN Charter has not changed since 1947 but the passage of Resolution 181 provides that commodity most highly treasured by lawyers--precedent. The PA can (and no doubt will) argue that the act in 1947 both justifies and demands correction with the issuance of an updated version. The PA will have the support of the Arab/Muslim majority states, most of the so-called non-aligned movement and some others. In aggregate more than enough to secure passage.
The PA will do whatever it can to assure any create-a-Palestine motion stays away from the Security Council. Not only will the US (probably but not certainly given the Obama predilections) oppose any such measure but so also will Russia and (perhaps) China. Neither of these states could feel comfortable with the idea that the UN can go around creating states in the interest of preserving international peace given the unrest and separatist movements which exist within their borders.
In the real world, any UN action will not be accepted by Israel. As was the case back in 1947 when the Arabs were the party of "no," a deal needs two parties at a minimum. In 1947 or 2011 there cannot be an agreement unless both Jew and Arab say, "yes." One can safely bet one's booty on the proposition that Israel will not accept a UN diktat.
A PA gambit involving the UN General Assembly is not difficult for Israel to counter. All that is needed is the political will to move the IDF into the "settlements" and coterminous areas and, with hands on hips say to the PA and its Arab/Muslim supporters in an imitation of George W. Bush, "Bring it on!"
Far harder to counter effectively is the international demonization of Israel, the campaign of deligitimazation which has worked so splendidly in recent years. Israeli defiance of the "will of the international community" will boost the efforts of the demonizers by orders of magnitude. It would enhance the appeal of the peddlers of violent political Islam greatly. More bombs will detonate. More people in and outside Israel will die as a consequence.
It doesn't take a Nostradamus to predict that any increase in the lethal operations of groups practicing violent political Islam will bring a push back from the civilized states. The political and opinion leaders of these states will have no genuine choice when the bombs go off killing their own citizens. Not even the boasting Iranians can or will deter the inevitable response of the West to an increase in terrorist operations. That, Jack, is a fact.
The UN muffed the play back in 1947. It exceeded its brief. Its reach far exceeded its grasp either as provided in the Charter or as existed in the political will of its membership. Nothing has changed subsequently. The UN has an excessive view of its mission and its capacity to undertake its sole genuine mission--preserving international peace.
The irony of 1947 would be repeated--on steroids--should the UN seek to impose a solution upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As was the case in 1947, the body created to preserve and protect peace would, once again, be the cause of war. This time around the war would bode well to be far more extensive and far more bloody than those of sixty-two years ago.
The takeaway for the PA and its supporters is simple: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it.
There is only one problem with this contention. It is wrong. The General Assembly did not create Israel with Resolution 181.
The resolution accepted the recommendations of the UN Special Committee On Palestine (UNSCOP) including a partition of the old British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Arab, the other Jewish. Overlooking the actual population differential in the Mandate which favored the Arabs by better than two to one or the land ownership pattern which showed Arabs owned over three quarters of the land with Jews holding less than ten percent, the UNSCOP report assigned fifty-five percent of the total area to the proposed Jewish state. The Resolution kicked the details of creating the two states to the Security Council.
The UNSCOP report and the General Assembly action did violate the long standing and often invoked principle of self-determination which had been a hallmark of US policy put forth by Woodrow Wilson as part of the armistice and peace treaty ending World War I. This troubled a number of observers both overseas and in the US but was overshadowed by the horrors of Nazi policy which had become a staple of the news during the preceding year.
The debate over the UNSCOP report and Resolution 181 did not focus on self-determination so much as it did the legality under the UN Charter of the Security Council or General Assembly creating countries by fiat. The Soviet Union protested that action such as that proposed for Palestine violated the Charter. This posture was adopted by Syria as well. Other countries saw matters the same way. Many of the ten abstentions and thirteen negative votes were predicated upon the concern that the resolution as well as any consequent Security Council actions would violate the charter, would confer upon the UN the undesirable status of "world government."
The US position as stated rather forcibly by Ambassador Warren Austin was that the Charter did not empower the Security Council to use force to implement a political settlement--even one instituted by the Security Council. In point of fact the American position was an accurate reading of the Charter. The coincidence that the US interpretation paralleled the view of the Arab Higher Council (as the several Arab states called their coordinating body) was unintended. The US had no political ax to grind in the Palestinian question. That would come later.
The Security Council was apprised repeatedly that any attempt to impose a partition on Palestine would result in a "breech of the peace." There is a large dose of irony in this: The Security Council had as its primary task the prevention of breeches of the international peace, but in any attempt to partition Palestine, it would be causing the breech. Delegations from Latin America, Europe, and the Arab Higher Council all warned that violence would be inevitable.
Given the warnings it would have been prudential to say the least if the Security Council moved first to create an international peace keeping force before even considering a change in the status of Palestine. An alternative which was urged by several states was a referral of the matter to the International Court. Neither of these courses of action were followed. Instead the Security Council kicked the can down the road on 5 March 1948.
By this time Resolution 181 had been rendered nugatory by the realities on the ground. War had broken out. The UN shifted its emphasis from create-a-state to find-a-truce. The US supported armistice efforts provided they were "without prejudice" to the claims of either Jews or Arabs. This was the most realistic position even though it almost guaranteed the war would continue until at least one if not both sides reached exhaustion. Then, and only then, could the process of creating states be undertaken.
And, that is how it played out. The ill-advised, emotionally driven acts of UNSCOP, and the General Assembly joined with the week-kneed position of the Security Council and the sheer ineptitude of the Arabs to hand over the Palestine Question to the gods of war. When the shooting finally stopped at the end of the second round of fighting, the new state of Israel had even more land than provided by the generous UNSCOP plan, and the Arabs had nothing.
Ever since then the Arab states as well as the Palestinians have tried to reverse the verdict rendered on the battlefield. Finally, after years of self-defeating war, terrorism, and diplomacy now worthy of the name, the PA has hit on a new paradigm. The new approach relies upon delegitimizing Israel in the eyes, not of the world, not even of the majority of the world's people, but of the elites of Western Europe and the US. In this context, the PA hoped that the new American president would carry the heavy freight of pressuring Israel into accepting a settlement far less than the best.
The American gambit has not paid off yet. As a result the PA has brought the new arrow from the quiver. The new arrow has a multi-bladed point, but each blade depends upon an international organization for its lethal sharpness.
One blade consists of the International Criminal Court where the PA is seeking de jure recognition as a state, ostensibly so that it might prefer war crimes charges against Israeli officials and military personnel but substantially so that it might claim to be a sovereign state already in existence. This would power up its demands for UN recognition of statehood.
Another, even sharper blade, is the UN General Assembly itself. The PA may well seek an new version of Resolution 181 which creates Palestine qua Palestine. The UN Charter has not changed since 1947 but the passage of Resolution 181 provides that commodity most highly treasured by lawyers--precedent. The PA can (and no doubt will) argue that the act in 1947 both justifies and demands correction with the issuance of an updated version. The PA will have the support of the Arab/Muslim majority states, most of the so-called non-aligned movement and some others. In aggregate more than enough to secure passage.
The PA will do whatever it can to assure any create-a-Palestine motion stays away from the Security Council. Not only will the US (probably but not certainly given the Obama predilections) oppose any such measure but so also will Russia and (perhaps) China. Neither of these states could feel comfortable with the idea that the UN can go around creating states in the interest of preserving international peace given the unrest and separatist movements which exist within their borders.
In the real world, any UN action will not be accepted by Israel. As was the case back in 1947 when the Arabs were the party of "no," a deal needs two parties at a minimum. In 1947 or 2011 there cannot be an agreement unless both Jew and Arab say, "yes." One can safely bet one's booty on the proposition that Israel will not accept a UN diktat.
A PA gambit involving the UN General Assembly is not difficult for Israel to counter. All that is needed is the political will to move the IDF into the "settlements" and coterminous areas and, with hands on hips say to the PA and its Arab/Muslim supporters in an imitation of George W. Bush, "Bring it on!"
Far harder to counter effectively is the international demonization of Israel, the campaign of deligitimazation which has worked so splendidly in recent years. Israeli defiance of the "will of the international community" will boost the efforts of the demonizers by orders of magnitude. It would enhance the appeal of the peddlers of violent political Islam greatly. More bombs will detonate. More people in and outside Israel will die as a consequence.
It doesn't take a Nostradamus to predict that any increase in the lethal operations of groups practicing violent political Islam will bring a push back from the civilized states. The political and opinion leaders of these states will have no genuine choice when the bombs go off killing their own citizens. Not even the boasting Iranians can or will deter the inevitable response of the West to an increase in terrorist operations. That, Jack, is a fact.
The UN muffed the play back in 1947. It exceeded its brief. Its reach far exceeded its grasp either as provided in the Charter or as existed in the political will of its membership. Nothing has changed subsequently. The UN has an excessive view of its mission and its capacity to undertake its sole genuine mission--preserving international peace.
The irony of 1947 would be repeated--on steroids--should the UN seek to impose a solution upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As was the case in 1947, the body created to preserve and protect peace would, once again, be the cause of war. This time around the war would bode well to be far more extensive and far more bloody than those of sixty-two years ago.
The takeaway for the PA and its supporters is simple: Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Ghaddafi Proves The Need For The Veto "Powers"
Way back in the Pleistocene when the UN was not yet of drinking age, the Geek took part in one of those interminable celebrations of early model globalism--a Model United Nations. In the company of hordes of pink cheeked consumers of adolescent idealism, the Geek went through all the requisite motions of pretending to submerge the perceived interests of a foreign state in the pursuit of common human goals--like peace, nuclear disarmament, ending global poverty, and protecting the world's environment.
In today's allegedly grown-up world, it is indeed refreshing to see the presumably adult leadership of countries large and small, great and pissant, acting is if they were at some Model UN instead of the real, honest-to-gosh one. The flood of idealistic rhetoric flowing from President Obama, President Sarkozy, and others was sufficient to cost Noah his ark.
Then came the noted humanitarian, Muammar Ghaddafi, with a message which quite unintentionally called the Specter of Rationality back to the Edifice On The Hudson. There can be no doubt that nothing was further from the (poorly) aging Libyan jefe grande's mind than invoking realpolitik in a place which is seldom willing to admit that grim presence.
Gaddafi called attention to a fundamental reality of the UN. Despite the soaring declaration in the preamble to the UN Charter, all nations are not created equal. The basic tension between the ideal of the UN being some sort of Parliament of Humankind and the practical matter that some countries are stronger, more powerful, and thus capable of imposing their will on others was recognized by everyone connected with the process of creating the body.
The UN, after all, had its origins in both the failure of the Wilsonian League of Nations and the need to fight a war in order to clean up the mess which came in the wake of the League's failure. This reality implied several (to Gaddafi and others of a more genuinely idealistic bent) disagreeable features would characterize the UN.
First and foremost, the UN was a creation of the nations which won the war(s) against Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. This reality was embodied in President Franklin Roosevelt's notion of "The Four Policemen." Later raised from four to five in a genuflection to French pride, the "policemen" concept was based on the misperception--or pious hope--that the wartime alliance of convenience would extend into the peace.
Although the necessary breakup of the shotgun marriage between the Soviet Union and the Western nations was foreseen by Winston Churchill types, the dark shadows of realpolitik were dispelled by the false dawn of peace. The implication resident in the tension between the Soviet Union and its co-victors meant that the Security Council would be powerless if it sought to take action counter to the self-defined national interests of either of the two diametrically opposed blocs. At the same time, the thinking which had made the Security Council the locus of power in the UN was fully justified in the minds of most by the well remembered total failure of the far more "democratic" League of Nations.
The processes and procedures of the League assured it was unable to take any effective action in the face of a threat to peace. Regardless of the nature and character of the threat, the League was toothless not because the US was not a member but because its charter, its processes, its procedures assured that no genuine threat would be countered by a response other than rhetorical appeals and toothless sanctions imposed as the members saw fit--or not.
The General Assembly was never intended to be more than a talk shop. Like any legislative assembly from village councils on up the food chain, the General Assembly has verbiage as its primary product. The process of talking both in the arena of the Assembly--and in the periphery of the Delegates Lounge and corridors--has genuine utility. But, the Security Council was intended to have the ability--in principle--to take effective action.
Yes, Colonel Gaddafi was right (even if his number was too small) in that the Security Council has been very poor in performing its original intended task--preventing aggressive wars. While it is painful to write so, the Colonel was far more on target with his criticism than was President Obama with his proclamation of UN success in healing countries broken by war.
However, the Gaddafi criticism is irrelevant. The Security Council--in tandem with bilateral acts both tacit and overt--limited the scope of wars. It helped prevent both horizontal and vertical escalation.
Ironically, the Security Council collaborated with nuclear weapons to make the world safe for wars. Limited wars, wars which were often far more internal than external. Wars which had the potential to widen drastically did not do so in part because the Security Council provided a fine auxiliary to the bilateral and inter-bloc efforts at decoupling of war from the nuclear threshold.
For the best part of a half-century, the Security Council, while acting not as a global cop on the beat but rather as a discrete forum for tacit agreement, had a fine record of assuring wars did not rage out of control. This was possible because the Security Council is small, very small when only the five Permanent Members are considered.
As the General Assembly grew ever larger with the proliferation of "new"states, it became even less of a "Parliament of Humankind" and more of a fractious congeries of competing blocs, regional factions, and naked self-interest. Not unlike the parliament of the later Dual Monarchy, the General Assembly became a disorderly house. The problem was not, as Colonel Gaddafi would have it, a lack of "democracy" but a surfeit, an excess of that commodity.
Compared to the activities of blocs, regional groups, religiously based assemblages, and the machinations of Great Powers in the General Assembly over the years, the backroom deals, logrolling, special interest group and corporate lobbying in the US Congress pale into utter insignificance. The votes in the "democratic" General Assembly have been for sale on the basis of foreign "aid," appeals to regional solidarity, and, most recently, calls to religious sodality. This, of course, leaves aside the even more seedy aspects of personal and institutional corruption which have made the General Assembly resemble the worst features of Boss Tweed's New York or Hizzoner Daily's Illinois.
Put simply, Colonel Gaddafi's proposal that the Security Council be stripped of the Big Five, the Veto Powers, and be expanded by the inclusion of regionally allocated seats would be to make the Security Council a clone of the General Assembly. The Colonel's waving of the totem called "democracy" was both destructive and patently self-serving. It would also mean the end of the United Nations as a body having the slightest shred of credibility or potential.
This is not to imply that the UN does not need significant reform. It does. But, not in the way intimated by the speeches of President Obama or his French counterpart. The UN needs to get back to basics.
The organization was established first and foremost to keep the international peace. The primary intent of those who founded and developed the UN during its first fifty years of existence was to prevent and punish international aggression. While its record at this is not the best, it is nonetheless good enough.
When the UN lost sight of its initial, primary function and wandered into intervening in the domestic affairs of member states, it attenuated its focus, lost credibility, and took on the most impossible of missions--restricting the sovereign ability of states to conduct their own affairs.
This mission leap allowed the UN to seek authority over individual regimes. Admittedly many, most even, of these governments were obnoxious, violated the rights and dignity of their own citizens and did any number of throughly reprehensible things. Still, unless and until these regimes violated the borders of their neighbors their actions should have resided outside the purview of the UN either the Security Council or the General Assembly.
The employment of fraudulent mechanisms such as the US supported notion that the issuance of refugees from the ambit of an obnoxious regime constituted a potentially destabilizing situation allowed the UN to take its eyes off the prize of international peace and instead take a jaundiced look at noxious behavior on the part of regimes that some country, some power did not like for whatsoever reason. This sort of hazy view allowed even the travesty committed by the W. Bush administration when it invaded Iraq under the color of UN resolutions.
An increase in "democracy" or an elevation of "ideals" would provide the basis for actions in the future which would transcend even the Bush adventure in regime change. The existence of global problems of economy and environment provide an attractive basis for a further expansion of the UN's self-perceived mission of interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states for some external, abstract reason.
Colonel Gaddafi and his ilk from the so-called "lesser developed world," or as has been dubbed in recent years, "The Global South," know this temptation is part and parcel of the UN in all its many subsidiary institutions. They know it is in the very air of the General Assembly.
Nothing excites the diplomats and leaders of the Global South more than the idea of taking advantage of the Global North. Of gaining power at the expense of the Great Powers of the North. That is what the Gaddafi version of "democracy" is all about. That is why he expressed what so many in the by and large irrelevant minor countries of the world think and say to each other.
Ironically, in his call for "democracy," in his demand for "equality" the Colonel demonstrated just why the Permanent Five are so necessary. He also showed the leaders of the Five just what is at stake should they or their successors ever allow an excess of altruistic or guilt-driven ideals override the dictates of practical realpolitik.
Yep, bucko, that's right. The end of civilization as we know it.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Fantasyland By The Hudson Gets More Fantastic
Once upon a time Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann was a Roman Catholic priest. He was smitten by a very seductive idea--liberation theology. So, the priest became a Left Socialist. Well, actually he became a Castro-leaning Communist. Fr (perhaps Sr would be more appropriate) Brockmann joined the Sandinistas of Nicaragua.
Along with the Ortega brothers Sr Brockmann was a noted adversary of the US during the years of the Reagan presidency. From the perspective of Washington the priest turned Sandinista was a bete noir of the darkest sort. We wanted him dead.
The Reagan Administration did not get its wish. Sr Brockman survived the years of the Contras. He weathered the period of political isolation which followed the end of the nasty little Contra War and the election of an anti-Sandinista government
Proving once again that the Lord works in mysterious ways, the Sandinistas came to power finally in an election that met the usual criteria of seeming to be open, fair and free. Sr Brockmann became Foreign Minister. As such he pursued policies which were not closely aligned with those of the US.
Be that as it may, US administrations had changed. The Soviet Union was of interest only to historians. Communism (and history, but not historians for which the Geek is thankful) was declared dead by American academics and others of the chattering class. Sr Brockmann was neither hated nor desired dead by the denizens living inside the Beltway. Even the neocons had bigger fish to catch and fry in the Mideast.
Now the whims and winds of democratic process have made Sr Brockmann the new President of the UN General Assembly. The priest turned Foreign Minister offered his maiden speech the other day. He proved two things.
You can take the man out of the cassock, but you can't remove the priestly from the man.
Communism may be officially dead, but lambasting capitalist Western pigs (and Israel) is alive, well and a crowd pleaser. Lest you think the Geek gets it wrong, the transcript is available at the UN site. (http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/statements/160908opening63.shtml)
Sr Brockmann makes his sentiments clear and unmistakable. Compared to the new GA President, Senator Obama frankly hates the poor and wretched of the earth.
When Fr/Sr Brockmann gets on a roll he rolls ever faster. Here is one specific case. Food.
Not convinced that the new GA president mouths the same slogans of long dead Kremlin Commissars? Try this. Brockmann's view of two critical internatinal institutions.
Brockman lets go with one barrage of Marxist or quasi-Marxist rhetoric after another. Climate change. Fresh water. Making the UN more "democratic." Assure that the will of "We the Peoples" cannot be ignored by sovereign states. Ya da. Ya da. Ya da.
Then the one time guerrilla fighter cuts to the chase. Terrorism. He has a take on the subject that would have warmed the heart of the Soviets and Castro back in the good ole days.
Just in case the assembled Assembly didn't get his point, the priestly ex-guerrilla spelled it out.
Brockmann decompresses with some of the usual dabba-dabba-do about disarmament and the horrors of the nuclear arsenals now in existence. He neglects to say a word concerning the nuclear weapons being sought but as yet still unmade. Such as the Mahdi Bomb.
After genuflecting before the totems of gender equality and saving the children of the world, Miguel ends on a note that must seem reassuringly familiar to at least some Americans: "Change — real, credible change — is the watchword of the day."
No session of the UN General Assembly has been pleasant for Americans unless they are remarkably masochistic in their high mindedness for a mort of years. This one promises to be not only more of the same but a further descent into the recycled muck of the Cold War, the America-as-Evil-Empire rhetoric of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties.
Come to think of it, those were Sr Brockmann's years of glory and ambition.
A further thought just struck the Geek. The sentiment of a realpoliker from the Italian Renaissance who wrote, "leave behind no wounded enemy."
It seems like the Reagan Administration did.
Along with the Ortega brothers Sr Brockmann was a noted adversary of the US during the years of the Reagan presidency. From the perspective of Washington the priest turned Sandinista was a bete noir of the darkest sort. We wanted him dead.
The Reagan Administration did not get its wish. Sr Brockman survived the years of the Contras. He weathered the period of political isolation which followed the end of the nasty little Contra War and the election of an anti-Sandinista government
Proving once again that the Lord works in mysterious ways, the Sandinistas came to power finally in an election that met the usual criteria of seeming to be open, fair and free. Sr Brockmann became Foreign Minister. As such he pursued policies which were not closely aligned with those of the US.
Be that as it may, US administrations had changed. The Soviet Union was of interest only to historians. Communism (and history, but not historians for which the Geek is thankful) was declared dead by American academics and others of the chattering class. Sr Brockmann was neither hated nor desired dead by the denizens living inside the Beltway. Even the neocons had bigger fish to catch and fry in the Mideast.
Now the whims and winds of democratic process have made Sr Brockmann the new President of the UN General Assembly. The priest turned Foreign Minister offered his maiden speech the other day. He proved two things.
You can take the man out of the cassock, but you can't remove the priestly from the man.
Communism may be officially dead, but lambasting capitalist Western pigs (and Israel) is alive, well and a crowd pleaser. Lest you think the Geek gets it wrong, the transcript is available at the UN site. (http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/statements/160908opening63.shtml)
Sr Brockmann makes his sentiments clear and unmistakable. Compared to the new GA President, Senator Obama frankly hates the poor and wretched of the earth.
I am aware of the great expectations which the vast majority of the dispossessed inhabitants of our threatened planet have placed in the United Nations to bring them peace, security and to defend their right to life and to full development. We must not fail them. It was most of all for the dispossessed of the world that I took up the challenge of presiding over this sixty-third session of the General Assembly. It is to them — to all our sisters and brothers on this Earth — that I dedicate my presidency. We must unite our efforts, with all the seriousness that the task requires, to meet their expectations. I trust that I can count on all of you to give me your most generous cooperation. On behalf of Nicaragua and the entire Latin American and Caribbean region, my extended homeland, I thank you for your confidence.When you hear words like this the time has come to hang on to your wallet--with both hands.
When Fr/Sr Brockmann gets on a roll he rolls ever faster. Here is one specific case. Food.
At the root of the problem of world hunger is the unequal distribution of purchasing power within and between countries. Rather than concentrate on increasing food production as the single solution, the central focus of our efforts should be on the reduction of the inequalities in our world’s food production system.Apparently Brockmann has a an old-school Marxist conspiracy theory view of global economics or at least the farming part of it.
Not convinced that the new GA president mouths the same slogans of long dead Kremlin Commissars? Try this. Brockmann's view of two critical internatinal institutions.
Both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are basically controlled by the United States and Europe. Both institutions have been and continue to be used as instruments of domination. The world resents this and this situation must change. The necessary democratization of these international financial institutions requires a change in the share system and the system for electing the respective Boards of Directors.You bet. Let's see now. Hmm. (Snap fingers.) Why not let the recipient nations control the Boards. That way those greedy donor nations won't be able to be so damn controlling.
Brockman lets go with one barrage of Marxist or quasi-Marxist rhetoric after another. Climate change. Fresh water. Making the UN more "democratic." Assure that the will of "We the Peoples" cannot be ignored by sovereign states. Ya da. Ya da. Ya da.
Then the one time guerrilla fighter cuts to the chase. Terrorism. He has a take on the subject that would have warmed the heart of the Soviets and Castro back in the good ole days.
Terrorism and human rights. Any act of terrorism, whether or not it is committed by a Government, engenders more terrorism. Initiatives to stop this vicious cycle must begin at the level of State terrorism. Otherwise, the official struggle against terrorism perpetrated by individuals or organizations will lack moral authority and will never succeed in curbing what some see as nothing more than a defensive, albeit equally reprehensible, form of terrorism on the part of civil society. The question is how to overcome this vicious cycle of violence; towards that end, terrorism by powerful States against relatively weak States must stop.There it is. The US, the West, Israel are the true terrorists. Unless and until these evil actors stop whatever it is they do that the Brockmanns of the world disapprove of there can be no effective "official struggle" against non-state actors.
Just in case the assembled Assembly didn't get his point, the priestly ex-guerrilla spelled it out.
No State should appropriate the right to decide on its own which States are terrorists, or sponsors of terrorism, and which are not. Less still should States that are guilty of wars of aggression, the worst form of terrorism imaginable, presume to arrogate that right unto themselves, and further, to unilaterally take action against those it has stigmatized.All together now: Spell U-S-A.
Brockmann decompresses with some of the usual dabba-dabba-do about disarmament and the horrors of the nuclear arsenals now in existence. He neglects to say a word concerning the nuclear weapons being sought but as yet still unmade. Such as the Mahdi Bomb.
After genuflecting before the totems of gender equality and saving the children of the world, Miguel ends on a note that must seem reassuringly familiar to at least some Americans: "Change — real, credible change — is the watchword of the day."
No session of the UN General Assembly has been pleasant for Americans unless they are remarkably masochistic in their high mindedness for a mort of years. This one promises to be not only more of the same but a further descent into the recycled muck of the Cold War, the America-as-Evil-Empire rhetoric of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties.
Come to think of it, those were Sr Brockmann's years of glory and ambition.
A further thought just struck the Geek. The sentiment of a realpoliker from the Italian Renaissance who wrote, "leave behind no wounded enemy."
It seems like the Reagan Administration did.
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