UN’s Syria Veto: UN is the Problem, not Russia
Despite the administration’s best efforts to give the UN credit, the Security Council at best will acquiesce to the decision of other countries to take independent action. In September, the president lauded the Security Council for its role in Libya:
Libya is a lesson in what the international community can achieve when we stand together as one. … We cannot and should not intervene every time there is an injustice in the world. [But] there are times where the world could have and should have summoned the will to prevent the killing of innocents on a horrific scale.
The difference between the horror of Libya and the horror of Syria is unclear, but what the UN achieved in the former was simply to agree not to veto NATO’s already clear determination to oust Gaddafi. The Security Council certainly did not “stand together as one.” Russia, China, Germany, India, and Brazil, representing the majority of the world’s population and a great deal of its economic clout, abstained. The two permanent members declined to exercise a veto, perhaps because Libya wasn’t the client of either; Syria is.
Secretary Clinton announced after the Russian veto:
Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations.
The Security Council was neutered long ago, and the General Assembly and Committees of the UN have become automatic vehicles for the battering of Israel, the West, and free institutions. Recognition of its ineffectuality is a step in the right direction — recognition of its perniciousness would be another. And best would be a determined effort to constitute a “club of democracies,” banding together to “take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace,” in the long-neglected words of the United Nations Charter.
I don’t know which is worse, when the United Nations does not do something, or when it does do something. Sure, there was unanimous support for attacking Libya. And what has that gotten the world today? Instead of dealing with one dictator, we now have a failed state on the Mediterranean, much like Somalia. The militias in that country are fighting each other over oil money and the tribal hatreds will probably make sure that the killing continues for years to come. Wow, what a “win” for the UN.
Now the Security Council has prevented us from diving headlong into yet another civil war. What is this fetish of the Obama administration for getting involved in civil wars? If we do get involved, a substantial part of the Syrian population will hate us for it, just like in Libya or even Iraq. Also, if we do get involved, once you broke Syria you own it. Who is going to take over once Assad is gone? More Salafists like in Egypt? Wow, that would be a “help.” We also got involved in Egypt and that now has not turned out too well for us, either, with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists taking over. So here’s my point: How about we let Syria work this out on their own? If Assad remains in power, we’re no worse off than we were before, and if Assad is thrown out of power, what replaces him probably will not be worse than Assad himself. Either way, the Syrians don’t need us to help make this decision up for them. If the Syrians want to be “free,” then let them fight for it. Freedom is not free, so let them know what it is to earn it. There is no reason for us to get involved in Syria, none at all. It is no danger to our national security (neither was Libya) and it isn’t worth our time, money, or worse, ANY of our troops. Leave this civil war alone, for once.
Having lived and extensively travelled in the ME, all I can say is — Ditto!
A beatiful and precise analysis. The UN Security Council is a tiger with no balls and no teeth. Their “draft resolutions” are hollow posturing, absolutely certain to be rejected by despots who are dedicated to their own survival, or by the totally innocent human rights observers they harass, like Israel. “Recognition of its own perniciousness” is impossible: it is dedicated to its ingrained corruption and ineffectualness, its endless neetings and expense-account hedonism. Think beating up on Israel while Ignoring Zimbabwe and the Sudan. You lose me with the suggestion of an elite Club, a sort of GLATO, an ally cat with balls but no teeth.
We have wasted uncounted billions on an a “club” and are not one whit better off in preserving world peace than we were in the days of Bismark. Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe,are diplomacy-proof. Our enlightenment has brought us a world where no war is worth one innocent life, a world in which evil despotism thrives – unthreatened by gasbagging.
Looks like were trying to lead from behind again, while Assad uses his dad’s strategy.
Not to worry. President Obama knows what he is doing and is organizing the “Friends of Syria” which I think is some sort of facebook group.
I think if enough people ‘like’ the Free Syrian Army then Assad’s other friends will block him from their facebook pages. He will be embarrased and will try and make up with the Friends of Syria so he can have a life. His wife Asma will find out that the other wives are not inviting her to book club anymore and she will make him change and be nicer.
I tried doing this with a “Friends of America” group a few years ago but it got kind of boring when only Canada and Israel showed up. A few other countries were on the list but never wrote anything. Then Canada got mad and left anyway so it just wasn’t worth it.
In 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signed the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. In 1945, the same Molotov represented the USSR at the San Francisco Conference, which created the United Nations. In other words, the same cancer tumor which treated with Hitler was a founder of the UN. A cancer tumor, left untreated, grows until it takes the host. The poison in the UN has been there since day one.
If Clinton and Rice were serious then they’d give Assad, his family, and a few thousand of his closest friends, asylum. If Egypt did anything it was to teach dictators the perils of willingly giving up power. Had Mubarak been given a safe haven then things in the ME might well have turned out differently. Thinking thugs will meekly walk into a slaughterhouse is the level of stupidity one expects from a highly intelligent Democrat. Is it any wonder their plans always end in ashes?
WW II was the death knell of the League of Nations, which no doubt was facilitated by the impotence of the League in the face of Nazi aggression. If (or when) there is WW III, no doubt facilitated by the toothless UN in the face of Muslim aggression, I hope as a side effect it will end the UN once and for all.