All I wanted President Bush to do was to wait for and/or convince the United Nations to agree that war on Iraq was necessary. I believe that the UN shot themselves in the foot when they made demands of Iraq under threat of attack, but refused to follow through because it was largely an attack to cause a regime change which was against their own rules. However, despite all its frailty, the UN represented a stepping stone toward world government stability, and should have been respected.
Do you think that the U.S. led attack prior to UN consent will destabilize the UN? I’m concerned this will set us back 20 years in world politics, plunging us into another era similar to the cold war.
Please avoid passing any moral judgements in your response. I’ve got plenty of opinions on the validity of the war, but I’m trying desperately to not bias my words to the point of offending people who disagree with me.
I don’t think this war will set the UN back 20 years, more like 15 years or so. The last 15 years have been somewhat of an aberration at the UN, specifically the UN Security Council. Prior to the fall of the USSR a sure bet for the security council would be that any resolution that would favor the US or a friendly state would be vetoed by the USSR, and coversely any resolution that would favor the USSR or a friendly state would be vetoed by the US mostly, sometimes by France or Britain.
The new situation at the UN SC is, IMHO, more likely to be a return to those good old days, with France, China, and Russia playing the role of the former USSR, but not as consistently or as reflexively as the USSR. In other words, when French interests are particularly involved, as in the case of France and its business relationships with Iraq, then France will most assuredly veto any resolution that threatens that relationship. The same for the other permanent members of the SC. The Russians, like the French, also have business interests in Iraq they’d like to protect so in this instance they naturally affiliated with the French, but I suspect that this is due to the confluence of interests, not a philosophical Franco-Russian alliance.
The wild card a the new UN SC is likely to be the Chinese. As their country’s economy becomes more and more tangled up with US relationships you can see that they would be a natural ally of the US. But on the other hand in an ideological sense a capitalist US is the natural enemy of a communist China. The reason I think this is a wild card is that it remains to be seen how the recent change in leadership in China will eventually play out. If they come out as a chinese version of Gorbachev then China becomes as strong an ally of the US as Russian seems to be working up to be.
I do not think is a major setback, and certainly not plunging us 20 years back in world political relationships. The UN made it perfectly clear what Iraq was suppoded to do. Tell the inspectors where he had weapons, not necessarily of mass destruction.
We have only known for about 15 hours that Saddam lied to the UN and actually does have scuds, which could carry a WMD. The fallout form this will most likely be more UN cooperation, and more scuds launched by Saddam…
I do not see this war going on in a month. I see it over way before that. As for political fall out, the school’s out on that aspect, but I see us gaining more allies as the procession continues…
Will the U.S.-Iraq war without UN consent destabilize international cooperation?
Based on his 3/3/03 speech at Tufts, Bush I seems to think so. He was a high level CIA fella and VPOTUS and POTUS, so I think that his credentials for making the judgement are credibilr.
Since the founding of the United Nations there has been over 200 wars and in only two (2) cases has the UN given a war its blessing. The first war to be approved was the Korean War. The Security Council waited until the Russian delegate was called to Moscow and then they passed the resolution (also China was represented by Taiwan back then). The other war that was approved was the Gulf War. That is what got the UN involved in the dispute with Iraq and why such a stink is being made about what the UN thinks.
When I was taught history, they made a big deal about “Balance of Power.” What bayonet1976 posted is a new form of that principle, and it is not all bad. I don’t agree with him about China, since it will probably be the main power that opposes the U.S.
[ul] [sup]What?[/sup][sub]and steal your thunder?[/sub][/ul]
[sup]What?[/sup][sub]and steal your thunder?[/sub][/ul]