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May
23, 2003, 9:25 a.m.
Passage to Irrelevance?
The U.N. belatedly
wises up.
By John F.
Cullinan
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 hursday's
unanimous (14-0) passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 marks
a welcome — if belated — acknowledgement of reality in the shape
of undeniable facts on the ground: Saddam Hussein's gangster regime toppled;
mass graves mutely reproaching the tyrant's erstwhile supporters; nearly
200,000 coalition troops deployed throughout Iraq; and pressing civilian
needs unmet due to now unnecessary international sanctions.
Resolution 1483
rightly lifts (rather than merely suspending) the 13-year-old sanctions
regime, thereby offering immediate relief to the long-suffering Iraqi people.
It also provides an immediate, much-needed $1 billion infusion to fund transition
and reconstruction activities for the acceptable price of phasing out the
U.N.'s thoroughly corrupt oil-for-food program over six rather than four
months. More important, Resolution 1483 fully authorizes the Coalition Provisional
Authority — a U.S./U.K. condominium — "to promote the welfare
of the Iraqi people through the effective administration of the territory"
until the establishment of an independent, internationally recognized Iraqi
government. During this interim period, the Security Council has granted
the U.S. and its allies full control of Iraq's oil industry — virtually
its sole source of foreign exchange — along with full authority to
apply the proceeds of oil sales to the costs of reconstruction, administration,
disarmament and "other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq."
Resolution 1483 wisely
limits the U.N.'s role to one of consultation and coordination, given
its manifest failures at nation building in Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo,
and East Timor.
Resolution 1483 puts
the Security Council in the curious position of legitimizing the postwar
Anglo-American military occupation of Iraq without ever having addressed
how U.S. and British forces got there in the first place. This is not,
however, unfamiliar territory for the council. In the run-up to NATO's
intervention in Kosovo, the chief proponents of intervention — once
again, the Americans and the British — decided not to seek Security
Council authorization in the face of a certain Russian (and possible Chinese)
veto, even though the council had repeatedly determined that the situation
in Kosovo was a "threat to international peace and security"
— the legal predicate for mandatory sanctions and military action
under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. After Serb forces were driven from
Kosovo by a U.S.-led air campaign, Resolution 1244 retroactively ratified
the settlement terms that NATO imposed on the defeated Serbs without the
council ever voting on the legality or legitimacy of the military action
that brought about the settlement. Then, as now, the Security Council
chose to overlook the elephant in the room.
Connoisseurs of Security
Council precedent will note that the council has now bestowed retroactive
legitimacy on military intervention against a member state in precisely
the same number of instances (twice) that it has granted prior authorization
for armed intervention in interstate conflicts (Korea in 1950 and Kuwait
in 1990-1). So much for the council's claimed monopoly on prior approval
of all arguably nondefensive uses of military force.
Resolution 1483 also
marks the demise of the so-called Axis of Weasels, that unnatural ménage
a trios pulled apart by the centripetal forces of divergent national
interests among the French, Germans, and Russians. This bouleversement
— a reversal of fortune in the diplomatic parlance of Old Europe
— has left Paris increasingly isolated as Berlin and Moscow set about
conciliating Washington. Hence the uncharacteristically emollient tone
struck Thursday by France's egregious foreign minister, M. de Villepin.
"Even if this text does not go as far as we would like," he
said, "we have decided to vote for this resolution. This is because
we have chosen the path of unity of the international community."
One hopes this path of unity is reachable only by way of a steep learning
curve demonstrating the consequences of gratuitously obstructing vital
U.S. national interests.
This is a teachable
moment for the U.N. as well. Where vital U.S. national interests are at
stake, the U.N.'s remaining relevance and authority depend entirely on
that body's willingness to assist or at least acquiesce in U.S. efforts
to maintain minimum world public order. This remains to be seen.
—
Jack Cullinan, a lawyer, was formerly a senior foreign-policy adviser
to the U.S. Catholic bishops.
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