For those paying
close attention to global events processing at a rate of unprecedented speed
in the wake of the September 11th attacks of last year, the undeniable
indispensability of United Nations operations was quickly evident even
before military strikes were undertaken in Afghanistan. As a case in point,
organizations acting under authority of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees
(of recent vital service in eastern Europe) had long been dealing with the
needs of millions of displaced persons along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border, providing food, sanitation, shelter, and diplomatic protection
against the shifting military deployments in the region. When US-led bombing
accidentally killed a number of UN staff, a serious disruption of sustained
food distribution systems resulted, and it became immediately apparent that
US Air Force food drops, no matter how well intended, would not be
sufficient to prevent starvation for refugees and displaced persons
numbering, perhaps, in the hundreds of thousands. Efforts were immediately
redoubled on both sides of the border to better assist UN world food
organizations in stockpiling and transporting sufficient stores for the
approaching winter.
On the diplomatic front, most Islamic
nations, Pakistan paramount among them, used United Nations Security Council
and General Assembly resolutions to form the necessary consensual political
foundations needed to enlist their countries in the Coalition against
terrorism. Pakistani leaders told their people in the days immediately
following the attacks on World Trade in New York that, in essence, if the
United Nations had sanctioned the attacks on the terrorists cells as lawful
according to the international precepts that it authored and maintains, then
that was good enough for Pakistan. Similar citations of the UN resolutions
were made in Great Britain, France, and the remainder of NATO. Japan and
Germany used the resolutions as a justification for their own contributions
of military forces to the Coalition or outside of their own borders (army
commandos in the case of Germany, naval forces for Japan) for the first time
since the end of World War II. Without the imprimatur of the UN, it seems
unlikely that even Saudi Arabia (the kingpin of Arab states and cradle of
Islam) would have been able to back United States' efforts against the
terrorists to even the extent seen to date.
It is easy to conclude that while the
reputation of the United Nations has suffered from extreme voices in the
United States, such is not the case in much of the remainder of the world.
The erstwhile Soviet Union obtained no such United Nations clearances for
its own military campaign in Afghanistan and eventually withdrew in defeat
after having attempted to go it alone. It follows that the Russians
themselves, in obvious recognition of the gleaned appreciation of the
importance of United Nations permissions, made reference to the Security
Council resolution on terrorism in their own early public pronouncements of
support for US-led operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
To those of us at the Cordell Foundation
for International Education, it seems ironic that almost forgotten by many
amid the shifting perceptions of the United Nations and its increasing
newfound relevance to the United States, there stands the unassailable fact
that the international body was largely the brainchild of one American.
Cordell Hull, Secretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt, who was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as "Father of the United Nations," a
title bestowed by FDR. From its birth, the very character of the UN, as
evidenced by the democratic principles to which its charter cleaves, remains
a singularly American institution at its core. Such was the aim of Secretary
Hull when he dreamed of the United Nations during the darkest days of World
War II.
Born of the mutual desire of Roosevelt
and Hull to carry forward the Wilsonian principles of comity among nations
first seen in the roots of the League of Nations, the United Nations became
a reality due largely to the uniquely American yearning that the scourge of
global war be forever erased from the face of the earth. It seems to us that
now, more than ever, during this time of terrible danger in the world, the
United Nations rises to the task for which it was made-in the USA.
It is important to note that the United
Nations in no way confined the Coalition against terrorism to operations
inside Afghanistan. As the war against terrorism expands, the UN resolutions
will likely be cited repeatedly as military operations ramify to other, as
yet unannounced, nations of the world (now including Yemen and the
Philippines). Secretary of State Powell contended from the genesis of the
crisis that U.S. military strikes against the terror cells should not begin
until the essential criterion of UN approval could be gained. The reasons
for Powell's far-sighted reckoning are now obvious, and debate over the
advisability of such pause for UN diplomatic backing seems moot.
On November 9, 2001, on the very eve of
President Bush's historic address to the UN General Assembly on
international terrorism and Osama bin Laden's specific threats against the
international body, it was announced that America intended to pay in full
its fiscal debt to the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin Powell's
statement that the US will meet arrears on membership fees and other charges
was made in the context of a broader interview carried on CNN and was fairly
low on the ziggurat of priorities that night.
Nothing happens in a vacuum and the
United States did not abruptly decide to pay dues at the UN out of some
lingering sense of guilt or a sudden realization concerning "the right thing
to do." The Bush administration knows that there will be a good return on
every dollar spent at the United Nations. In the context or more exigent
topics concerning the U.S. war on international terrorism, the CNN
interviewer was understandably far more interested in the possible progress
of military operations and the Secretary's analysis of the ebb and flow of
coalition partners. After all, the fate of civilization (according to
President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair) and the very internal
security of the United States now hangs in the balance. So it unsurprisingly
turns out that the question of hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid
dues at the international body took a back seat in conversation on November
9th and there was to be no headline deriving from it. It seems highly likely
that this present atmosphere of American malaise toward the UN will soon be
changing as the war against international terrorism elongates and the
international geopolitical shifts resulting from it begin to assume
discernible features.
Had Secretary of State Colin Powell
waited for a query concerning US obligations at the UN, he would likely be
there still. In fact, he was actually forced to gently volunteer the
information as opposed to weaving it into the answer to a direct question.
Lack of media or public interest in America's standing at the United Nations
aside, Secretary of State Powell and the administration of which he is a
part are keenly aware of the paramount importance of the global perception
of the United States within the ranks of UN members great and small. If ever
the United States needed the United Nations, it is now. With the possible
exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis (and the Persian Gulf War by way of a
more recent example), the US urgently requires the structures, forums and
formal organizations of the world body more than at any time in history. The
ultimate total success of the war on international terrorism depends on it.
The reasons are complex.
Secretary of State Powell's announcement
was intended more for international consumption than domestic use for the
simple reason that after years of vicious attack from the extreme right wing
of isolationist American politics, the reputation of the United Nations was
in disrepair. A majority of the American public remains unwilling to
entertain any realistic notion of how the UN might be of immediate and
long-range critical assistance. The necessary re-education of Americans as
to the useful and honorable purposes of the United Nations is now being
undertaken by the Bush administration following years of deliberate
misinterpretation, misrepresentation and undermining in the Congress and
elsewhere, but it will take time.
The crude savaging of the Kyoto Accords
along unilateral lines required sustained public excoriation of the UN. The
storm of criticism surrounding United Nations efforts to provide an
international forum on racism at the South Africa conference in late 2001
demonstrated how the joists and girders of lofty aim may be willfully bent
and warped by those intent on American withdrawal from the United Nations.
"Why pay them anything? If we pull out, the whole thing will collapse of its
own weight," and "What is the UN but a big, expensive debating society in
which everyone hates America?" were but two of the questions often heard
prior to September Eleventh. These were calculated attacks tantamount to
sloganeering. In the "new normal" of the post-9/11 world, such simplistic
formulations have lost currency.
Those intent on the dismantlement of the
United Nations remain a potent force in U.S. politics, to be sure, but the
climate for UN bashing is abating and will likely be further eclipsed as its
looming role in the war on terrorism becomes increasingly apparent. The
joint awarding of the 2001 Nobel Peace prize to Secretary General Kofi Annan
and the organization he leads (respectively) had already taken considerable
wind out of the sails of the UN "bashers" here in the US. The future UN role
envisioned by the Bush administration holds real potential for ultimately
landing the forces of insularity squarely in the doldrums of popular
opinion. Once charted, the course cannot be turned.
The United States and the primary
Coalition allies inserted ground troops into Afghanistan to provide internal
security and some measure of political stability to enable UN mediators to
bring the warring tribes of Afghanistan together in a national government of
reconciliation. But the tedious and ongoing brass-tacks work of maintaining
a stable working government in Afghanistan falls to the UN, as will the
chore of assembling and deploying a standing peacekeeping force. It has been
known since the end of the Persian Gulf War that the United States fears
power vacuums in the Middle East above all else and has no inclination to or
tolerance for the lengthy processes of nation building. President Bush has
made this point abundantly clear in more than one public pronouncement and
has been joined, to an extent, by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. For its
part, the UN brings to the negotiating table the necessary perceived
objectivity and neutrality for a task of such Brobdingnagian proportions.
It should also be noted that extreme
criticism from The New York Times and other potent editorial and political
voices from inside the United States against the proposed secret military
tribunals planned for members of the terror cells may yet cause the notion
of such secret courts to be reexamined. International courts (like those to
which the alleged perpetrators of genocide from the Eastern Europe conflicts
have been sent for trial) may provide a viable alternative and, in due
course, yet another role for established UN structures. If such world courts
are not utilized in the case of bin Laden and his lieutenants, they may well
be pressed into service for other terrorists seized in future theatres of
operation in the war on international terrorism.
In summary, it is possible that there
would not be much of an international Coalition against terrorism if not for
the actions and institutions of the UN. The US, Britain, Canada and
Australia might well be going it largely alone against the various global
terrorist networks if not for the aegis of the United Nations. The Security
Council resolutions have provided a path to rightful participation in the
war on terrorism that many nations might have found otherwise impossible. It
seems certain that the UN will be called on to play additional roles not yet
envisioned.
This, we believe, is the way that
Secretary Hull envisioned the movable parts of the UN and its functions, and
his dream remains a living work in progress, of benefit to the peace and
stability of the entire community of nations.
This is our belief and opinion. We
welcome yours.
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Relevance
of the United Nations