Posted on 02/20/2003 8:34:11 PM PST by Destro
Bush miscued by going to U.N.
By Robert Robb
Republic columnist
Feb. 21, 2003
The way the Bush administration has prepared for war with Iraq has considerably expanded its consequences.
There's a credible case to be made that Saddam Hussein is a threat to U.S. security, particularly so long as we remain unwisely but deeply engaged in Middle Eastern geopolitics.
He successfully hid large quantities of chemical and biological weapons from U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.
And he has already taken action against the United States. The Clinton administration said that he attempted to assassinate former President George Bush. And there is considerable evidence that Iraq was involved in the first World Trade Center bombing.
But war with Iraq is no longer just an American-led action to remove a brutal dictator who unquestionably threatens regional security and arguably that of the United States.
By going to the United Nations, as the Bush administration was widely exhorted to do, the geopolitics of the war with Iraq changed in highly undesirable ways. The stakes are now higher, and the consequences larger.
The Bush administration likes to say that the question is whether the United Nations is relevant. But the administration has rendered the United Nations irrelevant regardless of what it does.
The United Nations is irrelevant if it does not authorize war and the United States wages it anyway. And the United Nations is irrelevant if it now authorizes war, when an overwhelming consensus clearly exists in the Security Council and the body at large that this war is unwise and unwarranted by current conditions.
France and Germany have now congealed a dedication to becoming a counterweight to U.S. world leadership.
NATO has been shaken as a security alliance. It flinched at providing aid to Turkey, when requested first by the United States and then by Turkey itself.
Then Turkey hit up the United States for billions of dollars in aid to station troops there, putting a grimy veneer on an endeavor already burdened with suspicions about motives.
NATO and the European Union are now fractured and perhaps not the nest previously thought to nurture emerging Eastern European democracies and market economies.
Governments friendly to the United States are now in potentially serious domestic political trouble in Britain, Spain and Italy. If they go down, it will be precisely because they supported U.S. policy regarding Iraq - a chilling message likely to reverberate in European politics for some time.
Russia has been deflected from a developing relationship with the United States to an alliance with the Europeans seeking to forge an international counterweight to American leadership.
To a lesser extent, the same dynamic is taking place with China.
And anti-Americanism, already a fast-growing global influence, has gained great momentum and force.
To a certain extent, all this merely reveals the world as it really is.
The United Nations is largely irrelevant to the pursuit of global security interests.
France is not an ally.
NATO is not a reliable security vehicle for the United States in the post-Cold War era.
Israel is the only dependable ally the United States has in the Middle East. The rest are partnerships of convenience and profit.
If the United States had simply acted on its belief that Saddam represented an unacceptable security risk, many of these realities would still exist. But the determination to form a counterweight to American influence wouldn't have annealed nearly so much.
There are those who argue that having amassed troops in the region, the credibility of the projection of U.S. power will be diminished if they are not used. After Afghanistan, the extent to which that's the case is debatable. But by asking for world opinion and then ignoring it, U.S. diplomatic credibility will unquestionably be diminished.
What's left are unpleasant alternatives: Embolden Saddam by retreating; allow this season of war to pass in the unlikely hope that international support for action will develop with time; or take action now without U.N. authorization and forge an even more lonely and dangerous world for the United States.
In retrospect it's clear: The Bush administration should never have gone to the United Nations if it wasn't willing to abide by the outcome.
Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8472. His column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Understatement of the year. Bush should not have gone to the U.N. unless he intended to work within the constraints of multilateralism. Since he was clearly unprepared to do so, he has reaped the consequences of tangling up American priorities under the auspices of an international organization. And, not just any organization, but one that frequently finds itself at stark variance with the positions of the U.S. government.
Bush has exposed those who are with us and those who are against us to the American people.
Many Americans would rather just close their eyes and wish it all away.
Our President wants to confront it so that we may live a little longer in peace, and remind the world of American resolve.
Financial and oil interests of Russia and France should have made it clear nothing less than an Iraqi nuclear test would move them off their veto. The chance to embarrass America is one that State should have realized the French and China could not pass up.
It's interesting that Clinton never placed his foreign policy at the hands of the UN. We ended an arms embargo to Bosnia and cajoled NATO into allowing U.S. air support against the Serbs. We again ignored the UN on Kosovo which was interference into a sovereign nation's internal activities. Agree or disagree with the motives, Clinton bypassed the UN, built a jury rigged coalition and achieved some of his objectives. Had Bush concentrated on the construction of a coalition to join us and left the UN and Nato in the background drooling in their soup he would be in a stronger position to cajole acceptance on the part of France and Germany et al. There was a bewildering misjudgement that UN support was worth something. What? If Bush had a Security Council vote of 10-5 in support of the U.S. with nays from France, Russia, and Chinawhat would that say? That the UN is only the five permanent members, but the image is the UN is the world. So organize the world and ignore the UN. Clinton's amateurish, one world advisers did just that. I would have thought that more competent self interest would be expected from the knowledgeable and experienced Bush Admin. BTW I do expect to get flamed.
This whole thing is turning into a giant cluster f**k, with diplomatic wheels and military springs popping out and falling off almost every day. NATO is cracking up, we've got Frenchmen and UN bureaucrats humiliating us on worldwide television... now this thing with the Turks putting a gun to our heads at the last minute when we've got 150,000 guys assembled in the South ready to roll. We've got millions marching in cities around the world against a war that hasn't even started yet. Why? Because we gave some tired old communists months to organize it. If Bush gets on TV one more time and says "the game is over" and then we hear about "another resolution" or "more Hans Blix," people are going to walk away from this. I think Bush is right on the edge of losing the public. It's not that people are turning anti-war, it's that they're getting scared that the people running this have bollixed it up. This is a very surprising result considering the team that Bush had assembled to run this, but there it is. |
Check the polls a month from now, after we take out Saddam Hussein. Check the polls in Great Britain also.
This is called supporting your ally. Which would be Mr Tony Blair. He is getting much guff at home for his stance, but is standing fast.
The Bush administration likes to say that the question is whether the United Nations is relevant. But the administration has rendered the United Nations irrelevant regardless of what it does.
Which is a good thing.
France and Germany have now congealed a dedication to becoming a counterweight to U.S. world leadership.
They should tie that counterweight around their necks and throw themselves in the Persian Gulf. They will be as relevant as the United Nations when all is said and done.
NATO has been shaken as a security alliance. It flinched at providing aid to Turkey, when requested first by the United States and then by Turkey itself.
So NATO has been shaken as a security alliance. Yes, NATO refused to support a member nation, which proves what?.............that NATO already is a shaky security alliance. Better to find out now.
NATO and the European Union are now fractured and perhaps not the nest previously thought to nurture emerging Eastern European democracies and market economies.
Better to find out now.
Governments friendly to the United States are now in potentially serious domestic political trouble in Britain, Spain and Italy. If they go down, it will be precisely because they supported U.S. policy regarding Iraq - a chilling message likely to reverberate in European politics for some time.
I wonder what will happen to the these friendly governments after we emerge victorious. After they emerge victorious as well. Doesn't bode well for the opposition. Chilling, one might say. For them.
or take action now without U.N. authorization and forge an even more lonely and dangerous world for the United States.
This author proceeds from the assumption that the United States has no allies in the world. He is repeating the 'unilateral' nonsense we hear from the leftist world press.
I don't think it is going to pan out that way. Actually, I think it will be quite the opposite. All of the do nothings are going to look cowardly and impotent.
Saddam Hussein is finished, and personally, I can't wait to see the Chiracs and Schroeders of the world hiding from the cameras.
So when all is said and done (and it will be), all of the right people will be irrelevant.
It is the UN who is the sucker for once.
Remember the "for us, against us" thing............
It still applies.
Think about this for a moment. We are going to Iraq. You don't do the things we have without undertaking military action.
The President has stated numerous times that the UN risks becoming irrelevant. Many, many times.
The UN insists on dragging its feet.
I've heard for years here on FR how much Freepers can't stand the UN, and how we should get out of that decaying organization.
Well, a gift horse has presented itself. The UN waffles (of course), and we have to end up dismantling Saddam Hussein without the blessing of the UN.
United States shows the global media afterwards just what has been going on. Mind you, we're talking about a guy who likes to dip people in acid. What else do you think he's been up to?
Do you think he's been developing WMD? How far along do you think he is? I think pretty far, myself. Further along than what the UN inspection teams have been able to uncover.
What do you think happens when we display this 'booty' after 250,000 armed arms inspectors secure it?.............
.........some people are going to look really stupid. Dangerous in their inability or unwillingness to do anything.
We'll see who is the sucker then.
There are $billions of black market cash generated thrugh the monthly smuggling from Iraq to Syria and Iran, of "Food for Oil" programs laughingly under the "management" of the U.N. Hard cash for Syria. Hard cash for Iran. Billions, going to North Korea, China and the terrorist scum for death, destruction and terror.
When that putrid rats nest in Baghdad is ripped open, we're going to find out that it was the U.N. ... not Saudi millionaires ... funding the movement, arming and state sponsored protection of the animals who have murdered and maimied innocent Americans and Israelis. The French knew and volunteered, the Germans knew and volunteered ... THE CLINTONS knew ... but just didn't want to know.
That's the deal here, in my unsubstantiated opinion. The U.N. has been sponsoring the killers. That's why Bush is moving slow, he knows this is a world-wide corruption of historic level, and this enemy needs to be maneuvered into the target sight slow, easy and forever. Why else would the U.N. build such an obstacle? Why else the forces of Communism, Islamism and Anarchism coming togethier over THIS GUY ... who has threatened EVERYONE?
Oil for Food my ass.
Iraq opens the network of terrorism, and it's Kofi and a cast of thousands.
It's Dodge City. We're the good guys. Let's rock.
He wasn't flinging feces like a hysterical chimp. He knew where the cancer resided. Iraq as funding agent. Iran as organizer and protector. North Korea as provider of arms.
He left out the fourth player. The United Nations.
The vast sums of money required for an international terror network, with it's trans-national nature ... was never able to be supplied by Saudi Royals alone. They need BILLIONS of dollars, off the world ledger...
Hello black market oil. Courtesy of Iraq, courtesy of the United Nations. Straight to terrorist states and their clients ... and I'm going to guess, some European nations whose economies were strangled by fascist unions and low productivity. China? France? Germany? Belgium? Russia? Ohhh, nooo .... Buying good stuff to kill Jews and Americans and (don't tell the Europeans) ... eventually all infidels.
The overwhelming response against America's quest for Iraqi disarmament and Saddam Huessein's ouster is beyond all cause. The guy is a murderous thug. Shit, Clinton bombed the Chinese embassy in Pristina without a whimper of anti-imperialist angst.
The forces behind this "peace" movement are the same forces who manipulated the "anti nuclear" movement in the 80s. In that case, it was Ronald Reagan's open, and unyielding commitment, to defeat the Soviet Communist threat to human freedom through our superior technology and economic power that elicited the scumbags to make signs and walk together like dolts. The same creeps, in the same World Capitals, gathered by the millions to decry American efforts to eradicate forces of evil and violence last weekend. Over Iraq? No way.
This Iraqi deal is JUST THAT BIG. The same people here, and abroad, want America the Free destroyed. So they march like the useful idiots they are. The jig is up for the corrupt, criminal bilge. And ... they know it.
Let's wait 'till we see the whites of their eyes. The Iron Curtain fell, remember, but the bad guys were never rounded up and eliminated. They're still out there, now they're using Islamist butchers who aren't hindered by the inconvenience of national interest and sanction.
Your opinion is going to be substantiated. In spades. Just watch.
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The scariest poll results are the ones that show high support for attacking Iraq, but much lower support for how Bush is handling the issue. This means that Bush was successful in persuading the public that Iraq is a threat to the U.S., but people are losing faith that he's the guy to do anything about it.