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February
20, 2003, 9:20 a.m.
Action
This Day (Cont.)
On
the U.N. and war.
By NR
Editors , from the March 10, 2003, issue of National Review
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ast fall, after confronting the United Nations with its own dereliction
of duty in compelling Iraq to disarm, the United States chose to give
the U.N., as well as Iraq, a last chance. Iraq would have one more chance
to be stubborn, and the U.N. would have one more chance to be bold. The
policy has been rewarded with failure. Russia, China, and above all France
are as opposed to action as they were five months ago. France, supported
by Germany and Belgium, has spread confusion to NATO, refusing to allow
the alliance to prepare Turkey for a possible Iraqi retaliation. Iraq
is as slyly defiant as before.
Action could make these quarrels and hesitations fade like ghosts in
the sun. Once the American-led coalition has toppled the tyrant, the U.N.
will do no more than wring its hands, and France will do no less than
demand a share of the spoils. The Pentagon has made good use of the delay,
amassing the overwhelming force that traditional American military doctrine
requires.
Going the U.N. route has been psychologically poisonous, however. It
has allowed the antiwar Left, from the Workers World Party to the New
York Times, to mobilize itself. At home, this has produced monster
rallies of old peaceniks and addled kids. Abroad, the antiwar frontlash
is a real political threat for Tony Blair, John Howard, José Maria
Aznar, and other leaders who have stuck their necks out to support the
United States. Meanwhile, America's search for world approval gives credibility
to the assumption that we need it to act in our own interests.
The U.N.'s predecessor, the League of Nations, atrophied when it proved
irrelevant to the rise of new totalitarian powers in the 1930s. Italy's
unchallenged conquest of Abyssinia in 1935 was a turning point. Has the
United Nations reached the same point of terminal worthlessness? Not for
some purposes. The world needs a forum for steam-venting; so long as it
exists, the United States will not, as a matter of international manners,
pull out. We must make sure, however, that we hold our own security paramount,
and that we are prepared to guarantee it, unilaterally if necessary, by
preference with the help of like-minded states. To that end, the U.S.
should explore creating an alternative U.N. consisting only of liberal
democratic states that would be a better diplomatic forum than the collection
of tyrannies, basketcases, and enemies of the U.S. that currently occupies
One U.N. Plaza.
The U.N. gives multilateralism a bad name. NATO, for instance, has been
for decades a multilateral institution with a moral core. The recent French-German-Belgian
obstructionism is a blot on a shining record. We can avoid further episodes
by making plain that France, which is not a full member, should not assume
a veto. In any case, the culture of unanimity that has heretofore prevailed
in NATO was never a formal requirement. If a few states seek to leave
another vulnerable to attack, they should be overruled.
As for Iraq, the cause of all these commotions: The Bush administration
may choose, as it chose in the fall when it went the U.N. route, to give
the timid and the willful a few more weeks to decide. If nothing else,
seeking a second resolution might provide diplomatic cover for Tony Blair
and other allies. But, in the end, what will best serve those allies is
a swift, successful war. The U.S. should offer no further benchmarks —
no conditions, no hurdles for Iraq. We require what we, and the United
Nations, have required since 1991: forswearing weapons of mass destruction.
Hide and seek is not compliance. So long as they hide, we will seek.
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