So after watching W.’s speech to the UN today, it struck me that, intentional or not, the Bush administration has struck a rather brilliant political maneuver. They’ve rendered the UN’s influence impotent. As I see it, the UN has three options, and all three of them make the organization look as hopeless, helpless and futile as….well, as it actually is.

1) Endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This, after headlines have screamed for the last three months about how the “world community” adamantly opposes such an invasion. The UN capitulates. The UN loses.

2) Warn the U.S. not to invade, then condemn the U.S. after it does. Bush flat told the general assembly that we’ll be going in, with or without its support. If the UN condemns such action, and we do it anyway, the body is revealed to be a toothless bureaucracy. The UN loses.

3) Stand back and do nothing. This, it seems to me, is the least worst option. Don’t capitulate, don’t condemn. The body can save its “trump card” for a more serious disagreement. And without an endorsement, its members are still free to rag the U.S. to the press. Still, you then have the prospect of the world’s only superpower launching a unilateral (or bilateral, I guess, if Britain jumps in) attack on another sovereign state, while the world’s most self-important quasi-government body finds itself on the sidelines. The UN loses.

Incidentally, I think it’s wonderful that no matter the scenario, the UN loses. Any body that would boot the United States from its “human rights” panel in favor of Robert Mugabe and the Sudan is little more than a caricature of itself.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 12th, 2002 at 6:22 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.