That seemed to me to be the thrust of Bush’s speech to the UN today, although I don’t see the text available online just yet.
Um, what about the old UN resolutions he’s already defied? How much moss must grow on the wheels of diplomacy before somebody takes action? I’m not looking for the UN to sanction making new holes in Baghdad, just wondering why it has been such a <meow> in enforcing the existing resolutions.
Did anybody see the speech? What did you think? Is Bush acquiescing when he says “the world must move deliberately and decisively” Or is he speaking once again about “the world” between Canada & Mexico?
No. I saw it, and it looked to me like he was almost shaming the UN into finally doing something.
For example, he spent several minutes showing how the resolutions had been broken, and in one case showing how the resolution had been repeated several times a year for several years with no effect.
He was pretty clear saying that this was exactly the kind of situation the UN was created to respond to, and that the fact the the League of Nations resolutions carried not weight was the reason it became impotent and had to be replaced.
He was pretty clear that if the UN does not enforce its resolutions it as useless and impotent as the UN.
He said Iraq invaded Kuwait “without provocation” but this isn’t quite true.
Far as I know, Kuwait were using slant drilling techniques to tap into Iraqi oil reserves and this was Iraq’s reason for invading.
I also seem to remember hearing that Iraq were under the impression that they had tacit US permission to invade and were somewhat surprised when the US got all uppity all of a sudden.
The US, as part of it’s justification for kicking Iraq out of Kuwait, claimed that Iraq was massing half a million soldiers along the Saudi border in order to roll on into Saudi but subsequent independent satellite photos proved that there was no such large-scale mobilisation on the border.
Not really. This was merely a Iraqi pretext. There’s absolutely no reason to believe Iraq. Even if it were true, it would hardly justfy militarily conquering the entire country and taking it over.
Another excuse was the claim that Kuwait was historically a part of Iraq. I don’t remember what Saddam’s excuse was when Iraq invaded Iran, but he must have been able to devise something there too. He didn’t bother to give an excuse for bombing Israel.
What happened was that our Ambassador, April Glaspie, allegedly made a comment that Saddam Hussein supposedly interpreted as a signal that the US was not prepared to intervene. Her comment may or may not actually have played a role in Saddam’s decision to invade.
Even if that ambiguous comment did play a role, that hardly constitutes “permission” to invade Kuwait. The US never had the right to grant such permission in the first place.
Iraq invaded Kuwait because A) it wanted control of Kuwaiti oil fields, and B) Saddam desperately wants a deep-water port to fulfill his megalomaniacal ambitions.
The Iraqis didn’t invade Kuwait because of some slant-drilling. They invaded Kuwait, plundered the country, raped and killed its citizens, and when they were forced out they set all the oil fields on fire in a despicable ‘scorched earth’ policy.
Bush gave a great speech today. He put the U.N. on notice, and it’s about bloody time. The U.N. has been degraded into not much more than a pulpit for despots, dictators, and radicals to launch harangues at the free world. It has been failing in its primary mission for a long time. Iraq is just the best example of how ineffective it has become.
True but all I said was that it’s not true to say there was no provocation when there was. Iraq may have overreacted to that provocation, sure, but there was still a provocation.
Unless you can provide a reliable cite backing up Iraq’s claim for the pretext, then what you’re faced with here is general disbelief that Kuwait actually was slant drilling–ergo, Iraq’s pretext is false, and Bush’s statement was not.
‘Independent satellite photos’?!?!?!
Did ‘The Guardian’ launch its own recon bird? Over a decade ago, that is? What the heck are ‘independant satellite photos’, and when were said mysterious photos taken? 2002?
For months, various European governments and (Republican) domestic critics have urged GWB to give a clear and public rationale for attacking Iraq.
(It’s been my opinion that Iraq should be attacked due to Hussein’s obsession with weapons of mass destruction, but that doing so without international assent is nuts, for reasons I won’t go into here. Basically, I’m sympathetic with my understanding of Kissinger’s position.)
W’s response as interpreted by Stratfor:
Checkmate. Stopping Saddam is a matter of reinforcing multilateralism, since the latter cannot exist if agreements can be repeatedly broken with total impunity.
Well, now, before we get all huffy about all this Security Council stuff…
George is talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. Is he demanding that all UN mandates must be carried out, and the US is committed to armed force to guarantee this? All of them?
Our Israeli allies (actually, we’re they’re allies and they permit us to continue) will find this distressing, as their own record is a bit…spotty.
Or is he demanding that only the UN mandates approved by the US meet the condition that merits military, agressive, pre-emptive attack? Well, then, why pay the rent for the building, if all the relevent decisions are going to be taken in Washington? The delegates call all go home and forward thier petitions and entreaties, in written form, to the Emperor directly.
SH has been sitting on his hands for ten years now. enduring humiliation after humiliation. He can’t even rent a helicopter and fly to his southern border without a Mother-may I. Every once in a while we bitch-slap one of his radar outposts. Just because. And he does nothing.
Well, yes, I might be willing to consider that “containment”, short of describing it as comatose. And this is the dreadfully dangerous Hobgoblin of Baghdad? Sure. You bet.
December is right to make the very important distinctin between General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions.
And, unusually, I find myself in agreement with him on this issue. The UN was designed to remedy the deficiencies of the League of Nations, of which one of the greatest was that it had no control of the use of force by member (or non-member) states.
The UN was to attempt to exert control over the use of force, and the Security Council was to be the UN organ involved, not the General Assembly.
Exactly. Bush brilliantly transformed the debate into a debate over the U.N. itself.
Here’s all the justification you need: The violation of 16 different Security Council resolutions. Bush made the extremely important point that if the Security Council is going to look the other way when its resolutions are willfully broken, then it will make itself irrelevant. No one will pay any attention any more.
You guys that have been screaming that Bush needs to take his case to the world and try to achieve a multinational solution are being hypocrites now. Bush says that’s what he wants too - and the world’s tool for that is the Security Council. If they won’t back up their own resolutions, it’s a big blow to multinational governance. Multinationalists in particular should be on Bush’s side in this particular argument.
Yes, it’s a “transformation” of the debate, and onto a more supportable basis. I’ll withhold approval of the word “brilliant”, though, although it’s to be expected from some quarters - it’s come only after months of stumbling and rebuffs. Remember all that talk about how Saddam presented an imminent threat to the world etc., and how regime change was an absolute requirement, and that “we” (gotta be careful with that word) had to march right into Baghdad and carry it out? That was all even more recent than the anti-China rhetoric from, oh, last year, which received the same warm reception on this board from the same predictable folks.
But one can not point to any specific facts about Saddam or Iraq that have materially changed over the last decade or so, therefore motivations in claiming otherwise have to be suspect.
The timing of the discussion, during an election in which the GOP would be expected to pay for its failures, is a stronger reason.
I have to agree that Bush (or at least his aides) did a brilliant move. The U.N. has no choice but to validate its existence using the Iraq situation as the ultimate litmus test.
They are also in between the proverbial rock and hard place.
If they do nothing and the US acts unilaterally, then they might as well lay off the staff and send the delegates home and put a for rent sign on the building. No one can take any of their resolutions seriously any more.
The UN, more importantly the security council, now must work quickly to look in charge. If they give a blank cheque to the US they can close up once again because they’ll be seen as a rubber stamp of US foreign policy.
Now they have only one choice: They have to take control of the situation and dictate themselves how Iraq will be made to comply and what the consequences will be. This must look like a U.N. and not US led initiative.
Option three is gonna be a tough sell and I’m sure there are many UN delegates who have been up all night with growing ulcers as to how they are going to get out of the mess they created.