COLUMN: The United Nations has outlived usefulness
The war is over. A brutal dictatorship is gone. Iraqis now have the freedoms they have been denied for so long.
While there is still some resistance in various parts of Iraq from non-Iraqi Arabs who hate the United States, the process of rebuilding a country now begins.
This will be the most comprehensive rebuilding process since the Marshall Plan after World War II. We will help the Iraqis rebuild their physical infrastructure and productive capability, but we must also help them rebuild a democratic political structure that has been a comedic farce under Saddam for decades.
Who, then, will participate in the rebuilding process? Hardly had the Iraqi army’s morning exercises (hands raised, waving a white flag) begun when those most opposed to the war began clamoring for a place at the table once the fighting was finished. Even the French, 25 percent of whom were actually rooting for Saddam Hussein to beat us, now claim a right to be part of the rebuilding process.
Even sillier, the United Nations claims that only with it at the table will any rebuilding process have any legitimacy. The sheer audacity of that statement makes one wonder what episode of “The Twilight Zone” we have wandered into.
It would be dishonest to claim that the United Nations has never served a purpose, because much of the early 20th century convinced the world that there were some problems that need a global response.
During much of the last century, the United Nations was the only organization that could bring the world together, and so it became an invaluable part in handling critical global problems. The U.N. Security Council, the only part of the United Nations with anything resembling actual power, was an integral part of that.
As happens in real life so often, however, things have changed. The United Nations exists to handle problems that no country, or small group of countries, can handle alone. If the United Nations refuses to address these problems, or if these problems can be solved by small groups of countries without U.N. support, is there anything to be concluded besides that the United Nations has outlived its usefulness?
When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons, even against his own people, the U.N. Security Council was appalled but did nothing to stop him. When Iraq was very close to developing nuclear weapons a couple of decades ago, the United Nations did nothing, and only Israel’s bombing of nuclear facilities saved them, Iraqi dissidents and the rest of the Arab world from oppression at the hands of the only Arab nuclear power.
In recent years, Saddam’s new push to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons became an increasing cause of concern, especially after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Knowing Saddam’s hatred for the United States, our leaders determined that something should be done. The most likely victim of an Iraqi-sponsored terror attack would certainly be the country that put a stop to Saddam’s imperialist expansion in the past.
Approaching the United Nations turned out to be useless, as the Security Council did nothing to lessen the threat to the United States and the rest of the world. President George Bush repeatedly pleaded with the Security Council to maintain its legitimacy and fulfill what it was established to do and end Saddam’s threat.
Some ignorantly claimed that Saddam was not a threat. Others naively claimed that more pleading with Saddam to “play well with others” would do the trick. The United Nations was revealed as an impotent collection of countries so obsessed with their own petty quarrels they could not see danger when it was laid before their eyes. It seems to comprise countries driven more by their childish desire to see the U.S. fail than by what was required for peace, freedom and tranquility in the world.
In the end, the United States organized a coalition of countries dedicated to a noble purpose and accomplished the peace, freedom and tranquility that the United Nations promised us at its inception.
The United Nations was created because that sort of international coordination was not possible. If it is possible today, then it is time for us to admit that the emperor has no clothes and put the United Nations out of our misery.
Jeremy Kidd is a graduate student in economics. Comments may be sent to jeremykidd@cc.usu.edu.