Suddenly, the Middle East is facing three very grave crises, each of which threatens international peace and security and all of which have the potential to reverberate very seriously against each other. I believe the UN Security Council should be called into a special session to see what it can do to prevent a downward spiral in the region that would be disastrous for the whole world.
The region’s three crises are these:
Iraq:
The elections-plus-stabilization process that the US designed for the country back in 2004 has resulted in the holding last month of a nationwide election– but that election further strengthened the country’s main sectarian/ethnic sub-groups and has thus far led to an impasse in the formation of a national government. This impasse has not been static. It has seen a horrendous recrudescence of violence. Today alone, 125 Iraqis were killed. Meanwhile, the US just started signaling that it takes no longterm responsibility for the welfare of the country. Under these circumstances, the international community needs to step in– to give Iraq’s factions the assurances they might need as they work toward forming their own government, and to make sure that all Iraq’s neighbors are on board a sensible stabilization plan that takes their fears, sensitivities– and capacity for helpful action– into full consideration.
Washington has amply demonstrated that it can achieve neither of these tasks. The UN is far from a perfect body. But no other body has the global legitimacy to step into this situation.
Israel-Palestine:
The peace talks between the parties that the “Road Map” process mandated have not happened and now look further than ever from happening. Events inside both Israel and Palestine over the past 18 months– and more especially, the past two weeks– show there is no hope whatsoever to revive the Road Map (which is anyway running more than 18 months behind its schedule at this point.) process. The UN, which was a party to the Road Map but which retains its own interests and principles in the matter of Palestine, needs to take urgent action– here too– to provide ressurance to very nervous local parties; to broker a workable final-status peace agreement; and to find constructive ways of involving all neighbors in this.
Iran and nuclear developments:
The Iranian government is led by an incendiary and pugnacious elected leader; he and his broad network of domestic backers and allies have decided to take their country along a path of nuclear development that– while it is still not illegal under the NPT– nevertheless causes great concern to many in the international community. But international diplomats who have more or less “accepted” that Israel, India, and Pakistan can stand outside the NPT with impunity are in a weak position to do anything effective to rein in Iran’s programs. Meanwhile, several in Israel have opnely called for military action to “destroy” Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Even if this plan were militarily feasible (which is doubtful), the political fallout from such an attack would be cataclysmic at the world level. In order to defuse the nuclear tensions in the region, the UN Security Council needs to produce a workable plan for the creation of a “Mideast and South Asia Zone Free of All WMDs.”
Why the UN?
As noted above the UN is, and is widely seen as, a highly imperfect organization. However, in all these three arenas, only the UN has the international legitimacy that’s needed to implement effective plans for de-escalation, stabilization, and the urgent holding of negotiations over long-term solutions. The US, which until now has sought to monopolize decisionmaking with regard to both Iraq and Palestine, is currently facing a serious crisis of political leadership at home and has found its military and political resources quite unequal to the task of longterm stabilization in Iraq.
I write this with no illusions that the Security Council can find any quick or simple solutions to the crises in these three arenas. But all the nations of the world have an interest in preventing any further escalations of violence in this very sensitive and explosive region. And it is time, surely, for the Security Council as a whole to remind its American permanent member that (1) it is not only the US that has interests in the Middle East, and (2) the UN as a whole has capabilities to help defuse and de-escalate the tensions in this region that are considerably broader and potentially far more effective than those currently in Washington’s hands.
In 1956, it was Washington that– working with the Security Council– took action to reassert UN principles and capabilities in the midst of a crisis that had been caused by the unauthorized military actions taken in the Middle East (the invasion of Egypt) by two Permanent Members– Britain and France– along with Israel.
In 2003, when the US decided almost unilaterally (though with support from the Britain and a few other countries) to invade Iraq, its position in world affairs was so strong that other Security Council members felt they could do little to resist or reverse Washington’s decision. Similarly, with Washington’s continued funding and other support for Israel over many years, despite Israel’s pursuit of illegal colonial projects in occupied lands. But now, Washington has shown that in both those places, its favored approach has failed to bring peace or longterm stability. Worse than that, the outcome of Washington’s actions in each arena has been to incubate a situation of grave crisis that threatens international peace and security.
So now, as in 1956, surely the Security Council as a whole needs to step in, to reassert the rights, principles, and interest of the international community in these explosive arenas. I can’t figure who else could do it.
31 thoughts on “Bring in the Security Council?”
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Your comments are naive: the UN is doing the US/Israel’s bidding in the Mideast. This entire Mehlis report, e.g., is based on halftruths and lies. He’s a well known neocon friend of the US, w/ a record of lying.
Your comments are naive: the UN is doing the US/Israel’s bidding in the Mideast. This entire Mehlis report, e.g., is based on halftruths and lies. He’s a well known neocon friend of the US, w/ a record of lying.
Helena
Josh Landis documents the other ongoing crisis.
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/
I suspect that like a big badly written poorly designed computer program, the situation in all these intractable and interelated problem areas is too complex for anyone to resolve.
I doubt if the Security Council could agree on a solution that would be acceptable to all its members, that could be implemented.
I wonder if we have arrived at one of those moments in history where events achieve a dynamic of their own.
Dates that come to mind are 1618 and 1914.
Best wishes
1914 with nukes. We all hope not, pray not, but darned if I know how we can move to prevent it.
Still, things that haven’t happened yet may be averted.
I only wish the UN had the moral authority and technical competetence to do what Helena asks. The UN has been buffeted by it’s own corruption in Saddams oil-for-palaces scandal and has been diminished by the way the Bush administration has treated the Security Council.
It may be that an organization like the UN only has power when there are a number of Great Powers who see the UN as a useful way to maintain internation order and stability. The current use of the UN by the left-wing fringe and the right-wing Single Superpower have not left us much to work with.
Nevertheless it is heartening that the UN has been able to do useful work in the Syria-Lebanon situation so there is still potential.
Nevertheless, no nation or people will sensibly depend on the UN to defend it, least of all Israel or the Palestinians, so the chances of somebody doing something quite rash are quite real.
I suspect the current Iranian leadership has a suicide wish, and is secretly straining for martyrdom. If it were only the matter of the deaths of a few nutty Persian leaders it would not be of great concern, but the costs can go much higher.
I suspect that it is obvious that the currently unstable situation in Israel might work to give Iran more time to develop it’s WMD’s, but will probabably constrain Hamas and IJ from greater excesses: It would just be too convenient for the current Israeli administration to retaliate harshly against the Jihadis during the election seeason when Israeli politicians are obviously trying to generate their bona-fides as defenders of Israel in Ariel Sharons place. But that, of course, would be rational, and that sort of thinking may be out of place entirely…
The Jihadi threat to celebrate the (anticipated) death of Ariel Sharon with a hail of rockets is obviously a dumb move to us but that doesn’t mean they won’t do it.
Frank– thanks for putting in the link to Josh landis’s piece. I reflected for quite a while on whether to list the Syria (or Lebanon-Syria?) crisis as a fourth “very grave crisis” in the region, but decided not to in the end because I thought it is not as grave as the other three. But given that it certainly does increase the general level of uncertainty in the region it can only exacerbate the general sense of crisis. There are also of course continuing problems of legitimacy of the pro-US regime in Egypt which (if any big political turmoil erupts there) could change the political dynamics of the whole region overnight.
Although Iranian president Ahmadinejad has been making incendiary and ignorant statements, one should put them in context.
As previous president, Mohammad Khatami, discovered, the Iranian president has very little power. He has no control over the legislature, the judiciary, the military or the Revolutionary Guards. The president is responsible for carrying out the functions of government, but in doing so he is restricted by laws passed by the legislature, judgements from the Council of Guardians, and statements by Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Although Ahmadinejad is considered a conservative, he’s considered something of a radical by the conservatives. Ahmadinejad became the first president since the revolution to have his cabinet ministers (4 of them) rejected by the legislature (dominated by conservatives). I checked out the English version of the conservative-dominated IRNA, and found that they had mostlly cleaned up Ahmadinejad’s remarks to make it sound like he grudgingly accepted the facts of the holocaust.
The guy with the real power in Iran is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Note that last year he issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=302258. And nothing Ahmadinejad says can change that.
As such, although Ahmadinejad deserves, at the very least, the Kurt Waldheim treatment, his bluster cannot be used to justify anything more than diplomatic sanctions against Iran.
Interesting observations, Shannon. but that would be Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the long-dead Khomeini.
I would tend toward cutting Ahmadinejad some slack (I’m ducking now, to avoid the slings and arrows). He is the elected leader of a fairly disfunctional (at least in the modern world) country (think of it as a US run by Pat Robertson and the most rigid of his fundamentalist cohorts). The nations on his eastern and western borders have been invaded by the most powerful military and economic force the world has known. It is a power that is committed to spreading its economic and governmental philosophy across the region, as well as its culture and religion. It’s military forces could bomb his country back into the stone age in a matter of weeks.
It seems to me he has two choices: roll over and expose his soft underbelly in a sign of complete submission, or paw the ground, snort and puff himself up in an ultimately fruitless attempt to convince the enemy that his country is a real threat. We all know he is going to be pulverized; he is just trying to go down fighting.
Helena
I thought to include Syria because it completes the contiguous chain of instability from the Sinai to the Pakistani frontier.
I suspect that geographic proximity was one of the causes of the cascade of mobilisation in 1914. There wasn’t a firebreak to stop the conflagration from spreading.
It is worrying to think that the health of a very few men in their mid seventies, Mubarak, and Sistani, now Sharon has quit the field, is so important to so many.
Is Khaddam Syrian Kasyanov?
Syrian/Lebanese crisis looks like a minor compared with Iraq, Iran and I/P. However, it deeply involves the UN and EU – this is the main problem.
In fact, one good guess is, the neoconservative design is:
— Weaken Syria
— Weaken the UN by making it act as a world Government. This way, Syria is treated as a rogue province rather than independent state. This is not the way the UN is supposed to work! It is a diplomatic forum, holder of international law, and source of humanitarian aid – not global judge and cop.
Apparently, neocons used assassination of Hariri as a pretext to trap the UN in the Syrian diplomatic quagmire.
Now they are looking for rogue elements in the Syrian elite to wage colored revolution in Syria – like in the post-Soviet space. As for Assad, he looks too weak to control the situation.
Khaddam plans to topple al-Assad: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/806C114A-2385-4C04-B553-3FB6C6EFCFC9.htm
Re: Khomeini vs Khamenei. Doh! Did I really write that? And I did it twice. There goes my cred…
While you sight some success stories that the UN Security Council has been able to achieve, for the most part, the UN has had a dismal record in achieving stability, acting most of the time only as a temporary band aid to world problems.
I agree with Frank that the dynamics of today’s events will change history but this is because the dynamics of international relationships affecting world affairs continues to evolve because we live in an age of real-time technology and nuclear capabilities. This time we live in is unprecedented.
Therefore I believe the solution will be just as dynamic as the present. While I agree Helen that the UN needs to step up its role, it cannot do it alone. Governments and NGOs must also exert every means necessary to influence, sanction, and deter countries violating international law. They must also support and give moderates in the Middle East a platform, a way for them to influence their governments thereby changing their countries internally.
We live in an age of information and must use that information to our advantage. If the change is successful, counties like Iran would be more favorable to accepting the world’s status quo. While we are presently attempting this in Iraq (endeavoring to change the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people) I believe the fatal flaw was we used military force. As a result, we are negatively viewed around the world and are seen as occupiers. I am afraid to say that the US, at present, has lost some legitimacy in building trusting relationships which is key I feel to the stability of the region.
Ahmadinejad’s role and influence are of little interest. The fact is that populism in Iran involves incendiary, slanderous, and racist ideas as well as explicit mass murder threats and actions.
That speaks volumes about the people of Iran and the religion that underpins such a shameful culture.
Europe does not have the guts to stand up to Iran. Helena thinks that the UN does. I beg to differ, and state so here today for the record.
David
Ahmadinejad’s role and influence are of little interest.
Hehehehe…
Cirian, we are not just “seen” as occupiers of Iraq – we ARE occupiers. Even Bush has admitted that. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld commenced the war in flagrant violation of international law, and have conducted it in a reckless and criminal manner. They have threatened and may well carry out similar actions against Iran, which they labeled part of an “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea.
Remember, it was our CIA agents, along with the British, who engineered the overthrow of Iran’s democratic prime minister in the 1950’s and put the Shah in power, who proceeded to torture and terrorize the population for a quarter century. We have been the world’s biggest (and often only) supporters of Israel’s continuing illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian territory.
Given all that, what international status quo would we be asking Iran to accept? A world dictated by the whims of evangelical homicidal pathalogical criminal torture-loving oil executives? Should we not think about putting our own house in order before telling Middle Eastern countries how to clean up theirs? How about giving moderates in the US a platform and a way to influence their government?
David, you say that “The fact is that populism in Iran involves incendiary, slanderous, and racist ideas as well as explicit mass murder threats and actions.”
I try not to let my dislike for the American leadership lead to dislike for Americans, in general. I suggest you do the same with regards to the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people. The vast majority of them are just concerned with the day-to-day task of raising their families in peace. Think about that the next time you hear someone call for military action against Iran.
And it’s shameful for you to call the Iranian culture shameful.
JCS Chairman Peter Pace:
“As they see their own government providing a way ahead that all of their citizens can understand as progress for their country, … those who are fighting against the government right now who are Iraqis will more and more lay down their arms and decide to become part of the future of Iraq and not the past.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060106/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=AiQeEQhP2vOvDeLDHuF4fgyyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA–
General Pace, along with his boss Rumsfeld, have openly acknowledged that they cannot defeat their enemies in Iraq by military means. Yet they continue to predict that for some unknown reason, their enemies will simply give up fighting rather than continue on and defeat them. This is exactly the same belief in miracles that our military leaders professed up until the bitter end of the Vietnam war.
In war, if you cannot defeat your enemy, then you must retreat. Anything else is madness.
a side note here…the reference above to Josh Landis’ blog on Syria underscores the 21st Century phenomenon of professors, who in the past would have little visibility beyond their academic circle, now having the capacity to turn their special expertise on the culture and geopolitics of a particular nation into an influential global media pulpit.
of course, Juan Cole is an even better example.
Remember, it was our CIA agents, along with the British, who engineered the overthrow of Iran’s democratic prime minister in the 1950’s and put the Shah in power, who proceeded to torture and terrorize the population for a quarter century. We have been the world’s biggest (and often only) supporters of Israel’s continuing illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian territory.
Well done John C. you stated perfectly, I wonder those argue till now to correct the image of US in ME! How with all that done and followed by Occupation of Iraq supporting corrupted regimes in the Gulf and Saudi or in Egypt so what more and what’s we as ME expected from US that make us ” US Lover “
The UN has been buffeted by it’s own corruption in Saddams oil-for-palaces scandal and has been diminished by the way the Bush administration has treated the Security Council.
Yah Oil for food its all scandal worth US$600Millions. But Sheikh Paul Bremer III with one year in Power his corruptions reach US$9 Billions+ Iraqi Oil production for one year =US$15Billions, + and +
So not just the UN corrupted every foreigner who put to manage other money it’s corrupted this fact.
Just bring your attention that the Oil for Food program was watched also the leading financial company in the world whom they what the spending and holding the reports of spending and financially checks
Is Khaddam Syrian Kasyanov?
No Khaddam is “Syrian Hussein Kamel” when Hussein Kamel flee Iraq to Jordan he gave lies to CIA as he hided some documents and item when he was in power he ordered to hid things accordingly some of them in his farms, who can oppose his orders at that time imagine.
Khaddam who served for 30years or more Al Assad regime is now an Angel who loves the Syrian citizens and he is very worry abut the country so he calls US to invade?
He is just a bad guy like others but he is now hired by CIA or French intelligence to do the job on their orders
Just a historical correction about 1956 – 57. At that time the Security Council was
paralyzed, not as usual by opposition between the Western powers led by the US and the
USSR, but by division between the US and SU versus two of the aggressors, Britain and
France. So the crisis was resolved by collaboration between the US and SU and by UN
action from the General Assembly “Uniting For Peace” and creating the idea of UN
peacekeepers; the Security Council coming in only later when the rift between permanent
members was patched up and Israel was threatened when it wouldn’t relinquish Gaza and
a small piece of Egyptian territory.
I completely agree with Helena’s diagnosis and course of treatment, and particularly with
the far greater effectiveness of UN legitimacy compared to US military power, but my
own opinion is that the maniacs and morons running the US will swerve from whatever
irrational course they decide on only by pressure from domestic considerations like a
severe recession.
The relevance of this history is that many states together, hopefully led by major powers,
could do something worthwhile in the UN even without the active participation of the
USA, but I find that unlikely too unless these crises heat up even more, especially as it it
could be in the face of active US oppostion. The point is that it will take a lot of disaster
for the Bushies to admit or act in any way that recognizes the fact that their policies, the
culmination of decades of US “might makes right” folly, are a major part of the problem,
rather than the solution.
The oil for palaces scandal is but a sideshow, 99% concocted by right wingers in the US,
and important mainly in their eyes. The only thing scandalous was that there was not more
corruption and more palaces for Saddam if that was the price to be paid for an
oil-for-food program that was less an accessory to the “genocidal” sanctions regime, to
use the word of two directors of Oil for Food, Halliday and von Sponeck
I’m a stranger to all this. But reading about the role of the Security Council and its capacities to exercise effective leadership in the Middle East create’s an urge in me.
In my opinion, one must not look at past successes and failures of this Body as an indicator of its competences in the face of new situations, and especially the ones arising from the US intervention in Iraq. If the SC has a role to play, it will come in to action naturally… It didn’t work.
US foreign policy, always inspired by the “sacred” National Security, sees the UN as a means to this end. When the mean is useless, it’s not used. Same thing for all oficial US involvement in the International arena. The supreme interest is National Security. International conventions, organisations, other countries sovereignty and safety of their populations all come second. When they are argued, its for internal politics and have little influence in the outcome of foreign policy implementation.
As an outside witness of recent US history I am truly sorry and worried about what has happened to your Country. Sorry, because I have always cited your constitution, political system and culture as an example of human social equilibrium working out for the best. This is no more true, and the stain will stay. Worried, because so much usurpation of power and so much blind use of military might can only bring us closer to the brazing fires of a major International conflict.
Thank you for reading me.
Thomas
Quebec, Canada
No Khaddam is “Syrian Hussein Kamel” when Hussein Kamel flee Iraq to Jordan he gave lies to CIA as he hided some documents and item when he was in power he ordered to hid things accordingly some of them in his farms, who can oppose his orders at that time imagine.
This is pretty much what I mean.
Chaps
To get away from the political theory and stuff for a moment, The British have just announced they have closed their embassy in Amman, Jordan.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390590&a=KCountryAdvice&aid=1013618386064
Jordan is rather important as a buffer state between the hooligans in Iraq and the Israelis.
This is the kind of news that motivates soldiers to quietly check every single round of ammunition they have and double check the coordinates of all the preplanned fire missions.
Obviously just a sensible precaution by wise old Foreign and Commonwealth Ofice and absolutly nothing to worry about.
Sleep well.
John R. Wrote:
The oil for palaces scandal is but a sideshow, 99% concocted by right wingers in the US,
PALACES SCANDAL, before 1991 Gulf War the Bin Ladin Group built a Complete Residential Camps for US Troops when One Millions military personal brought to the Saudi desert all the cost paid by those stupid Saudis and Gulf Kings and Amirs.
Saddam was contracted for 15 years to build the PALACES all around Iraq, after 2003 Iraq invasion we found that US occupied those PALACES which Saddam may be never been in most of them now all the VIP and Hi Military commanders are living in those PALACES which they dream of…
Shannon,
I appreciate your objection but I still believe that the flavor of populism the works optimally for a given country says a lot about their people. I don not see any flaw with this observation. True for the Fuhrer, true for Ahmadinejad.
I am sure we’ll have a chance to revisit the merit of our views as Iran continues to speak and act. I am also sure their missiles are not pointed at your cozy house.
David
Quake Survivors Force Way Onto Copters
Here they go, bitter results of systematic UN discreditation.
BURT HERMAN. Quake Survivors Force Way Onto Copters: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3570079.html
Dozens of quake survivors forced their way onto two U.N. helicopters involved in the relief effort and demanded to be taken out of a Kashmir village on Friday, a U.N. official said.
Larry Hollingworth, the U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator, said the two U.N. choppers landed safely at their destinations _ reported to be the cities of Muzaffarabad and Abbotabad _ and the people who had barged on, fled. No one was arrested.
He said the “regrettable incident” was being investigated, and the U.N. was in touch with the Pakistan military and civil authorities.
Helena
This article indicates that it might be difficult to resolve this Security Council member’s point of view with, for instance, John Bolton’s.
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0601091185123327.htm