Actually for all the good and for all the bad, on balance the UN still has a lot to offer. But the balance sheets have to be brought up for accounting, and the lack of transparency or worse the incredibly transparent and sophomoric kleptobiosis with which some missions are carried out is for many of its important missions nothing short of appalling.

Which is why even under the auspices of the UN, it was NATO-an alliance democracies- that managed the stuff in the former Yugoslavia, and even though it operated under the auspices of the UN the Coalition- a grab bag assortment of tyrannies and republics- could not muster the moral fortitude to take out Saddam completely, despite the crimes committed not only in Iraq but in Kuwait and against Iran and it was the US acting unilaterally with the Coalition of the Willing- all democracies, many recently free of a similar oppression that the Iraqis exited under- that took Saddam version of Stalin out, and assisted the Iraqi’s in replacing it with a republic.

No doubt about it, all three examples have hallmarks of corruption and waste, but only one can be considered even close to being successful at the present time, with an end game in sight.

I think realistically we expect too much from the UN, and expect too little of individual members.