The conclusion here is particularly striking - ultimately, the United
Nations needs us far more than we need it. Or is George Will put it
today (paraphrase from memory) "The United Nations is no longer simply a
good idea that is poorly executed, it is simply a bad idea..... A
collection of 190 regimes - they aren't exactly democratic representatives
of nations - simply does not have relevance...... Indeed, it is like the
Holy Roman Empire that was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor Empire, in that it
is neither United nor representing Nations."
JDG
Top This
The French-German Iraq con game.
By William Saletan
Posted Friday, March 7, 2003, at 6:26 PM PT
Suppose I have a couple of tickets to a play, but I can't go. I know you
and your spouse want to see it, so I call you up and offer the tickets to
you for what they cost me. It isn't a convenient evening for you to go, but
you tell me that if nobody else wants them, you'll take them off my hands
for half price. I don't like that, but I can't find anyone else who's
interested. Then I get an idea: Your spouse is at the office and doesn't
know I've spoken to you. I call your spouse, explain that I've got a
half-price offer, and come away with a bid for the tickets at two-thirds of
what I paid. Now I call you with the bad news that somebody else is getting
the tickets at two-thirds of face value. You raise your offer to 75 cents
on the dollar. And the game goes on, as long as you don't realize you're
bidding against yourself.
That's the game that France, Germany, and their allies on the U.N. Security
Council are playing against the United States. In Friday's council debate,
they made two arguments against a U.S. invasion of Iraq. First, they said
it was unnecessary because Iraq has begun to comply with U.N. inspections.
Second, they warned that an attack on Iraq without U.N. approval would ruin
the credibility of the United Nations, on which the security of every
nation, including ours, depends.
Are inspections more effective than force? Is the United Nations a better
guarantor of U.S. security than American power is? Both questions are
fraudulent. Inspections depend on force, and the United Nations depends on
the United States. The French and Germans are telling us not to mess with
the status quo, when the status quo is us.
In his speech to the council, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
compared the efficacy of war to that of inspections. "Why smash the
instruments that have just proven their effectiveness?" he asked. "Why
should we wish to proceed by force at any price when we can succeed
peacefully?" He continued:
The adoption of Resolution 1441, the assumption of converging positions by
the vast majority of the world's nations, diplomatic action by the
Organization of African Unity, the League of Arab States, the Organization
of the Islamic Conference, and the Non-aligned Movement�all of these common
efforts are bearing fruit. The American and British military presence in
the region lends support to our collective resolve.
Lends support? Saddam Hussein doesn't care what the United Nations or the
League of Arab States says. He has ignored their words for years. The only
reason he's crushing his own missiles today is to stave off invasion by the
troops poised on his borders.
In a press conference after the debate, de Villepin asked, "When the
inspectors are telling us that active cooperation is seen on the ground,
how can we at the same time say � that we should prepare [for] war? There
is a strong contradiction, and we don't accept this contradiction." But
coupling the current inspection regime with preparations for war isn't a
contradiction. It's a tautology. Our war preparations are the reason Saddam
is cooperating with the inspectors.
In short, the alternative to which de Villepin unfavorably compares our
prospective use of force is our current use of force. If that approach is
working so well, the way to extend it is to send even more troops and armor
to the Persian Gulf. Yet de Villepin neglects to include that element in
the French proposal for further inspections. Indeed, he excludes it. "We
would not accept a resolution that would lead to war," he declared after
the council debate.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer stressed a different point in his
remarks to the council. "What is at stake now is the unity of the
international community," said Fischer. Unilateral war should be avoided,
he argued, because a multilateral solution would encourage further
collective security arrangements and "strengthen the relevance of the
United Nations."
Should the United States yield to the United Nations? The question makes no
sense. The United States practically invented the United Nations. Franklin
D. Roosevelt coined its name. The U.N. charter was drafted and debated
here. We host the organization's headquarters and fund the lion's share of
its budget. Other members are important, but the United Nations needs us a
lot more than we need it. Fischer is asking us not to put our national
interests ahead of an organization we built to advance our national
interests.
Nice try, Joschka and Dominique. We aren't fooled. We're touched by your
pleas for relevance. And we're flattered that the only rival you can put up
against us is ourselves.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
_______________________________________________
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