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OPINION
Why the US doesn't
need the UN
By Marc Erikson
I
beg to differ with Pepe Escobar's article Why
the US needs the UN. The US needs the UN like a hole
in the head - now or in the foreseeable future - to help
disarm Saddam Hussein or help reorder and reconstruct a
post-war Iraq. As for the UN, in those and other
matters, it would fare like the League of Nations
without the US in the 1920s - reduced to incessant
irrelevant babble.
Don't think me dense. I
didn't entirely miss some of Escobar's ironies and
sarcasms. But beyond such rhetorical devices, there are
hard facts, known truths and self-evident historical
precedents. "America bombs, and the rest of the world
picks up the pieces," writes Pepe. Catchy phrase, but
when and where, exactly, did that happen? In Afghanistan
recently and now? Prior to that, on the Balkans? A bit
further back, during and after World War II? In World
War I? Yes, the US didn't sign the Versailles Treaty (a
bad treaty, which in many ways laid the groundwork for
WW II) and perhaps should have remained engaged in
Europe. But it occurs to me that present (continental)
European anti-Americanism may well represent lasting
resentment that America twice in the last century had to
save the Europeans from themselves (and the rest of the
world from them) when they couldn't hack it. To be sure,
America has fought wars that weren't just nor made much
sense to fight - the Kennedy/Johnson Vietnam War high on
any list. But that's hardly the preponderance of the
record.
Europe - at any rate the "old Europe" as
Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld rightly calls it - agrees
with Saddam that the US wants to go to war in Iraq
because of oil. Many in the UN seem to be of the same
persuasion. Perhaps that's the result of introspection:
would we go to war there for any other reason? The
notion that one might go to war to rid the world (and
the Iraqi people) of a thoroughly disgusting, inhuman,
brutal dictator before he can use or pass on weapons of
mass destruction and to lay the foundations for
democratic governance in the Middle East is idealistic
pretext, alien to the sophisticated French realist, and
arrogant deceit and hypocrisy to the German pacifist.
Such cynicism or cowardly see-no-evil pacifism, one
suspects, comes easy to folks who started two murderous
and genocidal world wars, found themselves incapable of
booting out brutal dictatorial regimes of their own
making, and had to rely on those simple-minded, uncouth
Yanks to fight and die for restoring their freedom.
That a large number of the companies listed as
suppliers in Iraq's unexpurgated report to the UN on its
weapons programs are of German, Swiss and French origin
goes conveniently unmentioned. Tracing that scandal
might be a useful exercise for Herr Schroeder's
intelligence services - on the chancy assumption that
the valiant anti-war chancellor and those services are
willing and capable and true enough to their oft-stated
convictions to do so. Mealymouthed opportunism is more
Schroeder's style.
That the US does not need the
UN (or anyone), materially or otherwise (approval), to
go to war against Iraq and win is generally
acknowledged. Those anxious to avoid war would do better
trying to persuade Saddam to take a hike than trying to
postpone the inevitable by stretching out inspections
under UN Security Council resolution 1441.
(Incidentally, the idea that the US also wants to see
some stretching out because it's not ready for war is
utter nonsense. Approximately 200,000 US/UK troops and
600 aircraft now in the region are an ample strike
force.) In any case, as President George W Bush
reiterated in his Tuesday night State of the Union
address to the US Congress, the US considers the regime
of Saddam Hussein in clear and flagrant breach of any
number of UN resolutions and reserves the right - as
certified by Congress - to act on its own in defense of
its national security and interest.
Saddam has
not disarmed as required by unambiguously worded
resolution 1441 and earlier ones. It is not the
obligation of UN weapons inspectors to play
cat-and-mouse with Iraq and find "smoking guns". It is
Iraq's obligation to fully declare and lay open its
weapons programs and for the inspectors to verify their
dismantlement. Nothing of the sort has occurred. By
sharp contrast (and example), South Africa, starting in
1991, fully disclosed and dismantled its nuclear weapons
programs, capabilities and facilities in cooperation
with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
There was no need to search for smoking guns. South
Africa allowed the IAEA complete access to operating and
defunct facilities, provided thousands of current and
historical documents, and allowed detailed, unfettered
discussions with personnel involved in the program,
leading the IAEA to state in 1994, "In the case of South
Africa, the results of extensive inspection and
assessment, and the transparency and openness shown,
have led to the conclusion that there were no
indications to suggest that the initial inventory is
incomplete or that the nuclear weapon program was not
completely terminated and dismantled."
The IAEA
stated further that, "By 1989, South Africa had six
[nuclear] devices in its arsenal, each containing 55
kilograms of HEU [highly-enriched uranium], and enough
HEU for a seventh device ... With access to South
African records, the IAEA recalculated the Y-Plant's
[principal uranium enrichment facility] production on a
day-to-day basis and arrived at a final estimate within
about 5-10 kilograms of South Africa's declaration. The
IAEA was able to verify the scope and timing of the
South African nuclear weapons program and its subsequent
dismantlement." It is Saddam Hussein's obligation to
allow for and actively cooperate in similar verification
in regard to all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
and missile capabilities. This has not been done.
That the US doesn't need the UN in any post-war
developments in Iraq should be as obvious as the fact
that it doesn't need the UN to conduct or authorize war.
General Tommy Franks may be no Douglas McArthur. But
that is not required nor perhaps even desirable. Any
US-led occupying force would be commanded by Franks, but
- as in Afghanistan - the US would aim to foster the
development of an Iraqi civilian authority to govern the
country as soon as feasible rather than have a military
commander exercise longer-term administrative authority.
Iraq is rich in human and natural resources providing a
sound basis for political and economic reconstruction.
Vexing ethnic minority issues will have to be faced as
well as competing claims of Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.
But Iraq has no history of unsettling religious strife
threatening its cohesion as a nation.
There are
competing proposals on the disposition of Iraqi oil
revenues in the reconstruction process. Some would see
the existing UN oil-for-food program administer and
oversee oil revenue allocation. Others propose placing
such revenues in trust for a new and democratically
legitimized Iraqi government to dispose of as it sees
fit. I see no need for UN involvement. How it rebuilds
its country is the sovereign decision of a
representative future government.
My colleague
Escobar foresees a future quagmire from which the US
will need UN help to extract itself. I have greater
trust in the ability of a free people to order their own
affairs without UN or US tutelage.
"Your [the
Iraqi people's] enemy is not surrounding your country.
Your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and
his regime are removed from power will be the day of
your liberation," said George Bush in his address to
Congress on Tuesday. I trust that as in Afghanistan
(much as in Germany after World War II) a liberated
people will cherish and make the most of its freedom. It
won't be easy. But it's a whole lot easier and more
rewarding than life under the likes of Saddam Hussein or
Adolf Hitler.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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