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CounterPunch
February
8, 2003
The Logic of the Hawks
If
the UN Vetoes the US, It Risk Irrelevance?
By MUQTEDAR KHAN
President Bush is determined to attack Iraq. It
is also clear that if he cannot convince, he will bully the international
community into compliance with his wishes. First Bush and now
Powell have threatened that UN Security Council by stating that
"it risks irrelevance" if it fails to join the US.
Their argument runs as follows:
Iraq is in "material breach"
of UN Security Council resolution 1441 and therefore unless the
UN immediately goes to war against Iraq to impose this resolution,
it will lose its international influence. If the UN vetoes US
military action, it will become irrelevant because Washington
is determined to attack Iraq, with or without the UN.
The irony, hypocrisy and absurdity of
this position seems to escape most American commentators. The
US is determined to go along with International Law if it concurs
with it or else the US is determined to break international law
to impose international law (1441)! If the US violates any UN
resolution how is its position different from that of Iraq's.
Both will be in breach of UN resolutions.
Apparently the UN's relevance is contingent
upon its subservience to US policies. How can the administration
ignore that in the eyes of many Americans (65% according to a
recent Los Angeles Times survey) a UN approval is necessary.
For Tony Blair, who is supporting the war on Iraq in spite of
80% opposition from the British public, British democracy and
his own people are irrelevant but the UN still matters as even
he --- the lion hearted poodle is reluctant to accompany
Bush on this new crusade.
American commentators seem to be under
the illusion that America is world community. Yes, the US is
the sole super power; it has zillions of nuclear bombs and great
stacks of chemical and biological weapons and hundreds of thousands
of missiles and planes and can kill the entire human race many
times over. Sure it has power. But America is not the world.
Even if America thinks the UN is irrelevant, there are over 2oo
countries who know that today in this unipolar world the only
thing that stands between America's weapons of mass destruction
and them is the UN.
Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians
will die by the smart weapons that the Bush administration is
so eager to launch at them. Right now only the UN stands between
them and the US.
Even if the US attacks Iraq, the Iraqis
who survive will still have the UN to thank for the extra months
(oh no! weeks not months) that they got to spend with their near
and dear ones. Who can predict where America's smart bombs will
land. In Belgrade they landed on the Chinese embassy, in Afghanistan
on a wedding party. Will the UN ever be irrelevant to a father
who could hug his child for a few extra weeks? We know that American
lives are worth far, far more than those of the miserable Iraqis,
Madeline Albright told us that when she justified sanctions which
killed half a million Iraqi children. But to an Iraqi, her family
matters and the UN is as relevant as the future of her dear ones.
In spite of its rhetoric, the Bush administration
recognizes the relevance and significance of the UN in a world
so intricately interdependent. That was the principal reason
why they went to the world body. Bush did not go to the UN as
a charitable gesture to the world. He has already expressed his
total disregard for "others" and his determination
to do whatever he thinks he needs to do.
He went to the UN for two things
legitimacy and post war reconstruction support. The American
economy is on downward spiral. The federal and state budgets
are in deficits, unemployment and debt is on the rise. America
cannot afford to spend billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq and
plant democracy there as it promises. It needs the EU to help
pay for Iraq's reconstruction.
Above all it needs legitimacy in this
war to enjoy multilateral support in the war on terror. If the
Bush administration thinks it can thumb its nose at the world
and ride its hobbyhorse, it will have a non-multilateral world
and an "irrelevant UN" in the real war on terror that
it must fight regardless of what happens in Iraq.
Moreover if the UN capitulates to the
US it will be seen as just another Tony Blair. It will lose its
significance. By opposing the sole super power the UN will gain
in prestige and significance for the rest of the world.
The US has prevented the UN from enforcing
several resolutions against Israel for decades, has that made
the UN insignificant? Sure the UN cannot enforce its writ unless
the major powers motivated by self-interest act in concert. But
one thing is for sure the UN can give or strip a country's international
actions of their legitimacy. It can make American actions illegal
or legal in the eyes of the international community. If the US
attacks Iraq against the will of the UN, it will be against the
will of the world and illegitimate.
In a civilized world the UN will remain
significant as long as it represents world opinion. It is not
the US that determines its relevance, but a shared global vision
of peace and international legal and humanitarian order that
makes it the beacon of hope and harmony that it is. If we choose
to part ways with this global vision, it is we who stand to loose
and not the rest of the 5.75 billion people on this planet.
Muqtedar Khan
is Director of International Studies at Adrian College in Adrian,
Michigan and the author of American
Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom. He can be reached at:
muqtedar@yahoo.com
Today's Features
Linda Heard
Powell
at the UN: Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
Anthony Gancarski
Peggy
Noonan, Space Case
The Columbia and the Manufacture of Tragedy
Robert Fisk
You Wanted
to Believe Him: Powell Does Beckett
Robert Jensen
Powell
at the UN:
Smoking Guns and Big Guns
William Hughes
Colin
Powell's Big Flop
Ali Abunimah
Dissecting Powell's Speech:
Hearsay and Old Allegations
Phyllis Bennis
Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
to Colin Powell
Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the War Game
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