A Stitch in Haste

The U.N. has voted to order Israel to remove its self-defense wall:

The vote in the 191-nation assembly was 150-6, with 10 abstentions.

All 25 European Union countries voted in support of the Palestinian-drafted measure after its Arab sponsors approved a series of amendments proposed by the EU bloc over days of intense negotiations.

The U.S. voted no.

Now would be a good time to review some choice U.N. quotes:

"A theater of the absurd, a decomposing corpse and an insane asylum." -- Daniel P. Moynihan

"Nothing more than the executive committee of the Third World dicatorships." --Jeanne Kirkpatrick

"The greatest fraud in all History." -- John E. Rankin

For background on the ICJ ruling regarding the wall, see my earlier posts here and here.

It seems almost blasphemous to nitpick this outstanding op-ed by Victor Davis Hanson in the Wall Street Journal (also available at OpinionJournal). Some money quotes:

[T]the U.N. is not the idealistic postwar organization of our collective Unicef and Unesco nostalgia, the old perpetual force for good that we once associated with hunger relief and peacekeeping. Its membership is instead rife with tyrannies, theocracies and Stalinist regimes. Many of them, like Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, have served on the U.N.'s 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Libyan lunocracy--infamous for its dirty war with Chad and cash bounties to mass murderers--chaired the 2003 session. For Mr. Bush to talk to such folk about the need to spread liberty means removing from power, or indeed jailing, many of the oppressors sitting in his audience.
...
There is no intrinsic reason why the U.N. should be based in New York rather than in its more logical utopian home in Brussels or Geneva. There is no law chiseled in stone that says any fascist or dictatorial state deserves authorized membership by virtue of its hijacking of a government. There is no logic to why a France is on the Security Council, but a Japan or India is not. And there is no reason why a group of democratic nations, unapologetic about their values and resolute to protect freedom, cannot act collectively for the common good, entirely indifferent to Syria's censure or a Chinese veto.

My only observation is that it would have been nice to see Hanson flesh out that second part a bit more (i.e., the demographic, not to mention democratic, illogic of current Security Council membership).

It is now 60 years -- more than two generations -- since the end of World War II in Europe. We now have, the one-worlders would argue, a single European nation. Fine, give it a single seat on the Security Council. Why should France, with a population and economy roughly the size of Brooklyn's, have veto power into perpetuity? Because of the war and what happened to France? By that logic Israel would have a greater claim to a permanent seat.

When the U.N. was founded, a permanent Security Council seat was given to the Soviet Union. News flash -- there's no Soviet Union anymore, so the seat should have been dissolved and not meekly turned over to Russia. Soon India will have more people than China, so why not transfer its permanent seat to India? And what about Indonesia? Brazil?

This Global Policy Forum site has a collection of links regarding Security Council reform. A good Heritage Foundation piece on general U.N. reform can be found here.

UPDATE: More bickering in Europe over the weekend as Germany pushes for a permanent seat. Captain Ed has more.

Again, it's really quite simple: One Europe, one seat.

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway).

Reuters reports that the United Nations has reduced the field of more than 100 proposals to restructure the Security Council down to two:

--"Six new permanent members without veto power: two from Asia, two from Africa, one from Europe and one from the Americas, plus three new nonpermanent members for a two-year term for a total of 24 seats."

--"The second recommendation is for eight seats in a new class of members, who would serve for four years, subject to renewal. They would include 2 each from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. In addition, this plan foresees one nonpermanent two-year seat for a total of 24."

Of course, rivalries are pre-emptively scuttling any chance for real reform:

Italy, which does not want to be the only large European country without a permanent council seat, opposes Germany; Pakistan opposes India; and Mexico and Argentina oppose Brazil, a Portuguese-speaking country in a largely Spanish-speaking continent.

Whatever.

It still seems to me that a unified Europe should mean a unified Security Council seat and that when the Soviet Union dissolved its seat should have dissolved as well, rather than meekly defaulting to a "Russian" seat.

Then again, it also seems to me that the very idea of "permanent veto power," even by the United States, is anachronistic now that almost three generations have passed since the end of World War II and the Cold War has been won. As we showed, rightly or wrongly (I think rightly) regarding Iraq, the U.S. would always have "veto power" over the U.N., even without a permanent seat, or even without a Security Council to begin with.

Then again, it also seems to me that the idea that China, a bloodthirsty Communist dictatorship, is allowed even in the visitors gallery, let alone the Security Council as a permanent member, debases the whole concept of the U.N. as a clearinghouse for peaceful global diplomacy.

Then again, it also seems to me that the same should be said for Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc.

Then again, it also seems to me...okay, I'll stop now.

UPDATE: Senator Norm Coleman is calling for Kofi Annan to resign:

Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.

Okay, fine, whatever. I prefer MartiniPundit's conclusion:

The UN is a corrupt, useless organization which ought to be disbanded. Calling for the resignation of Annan misses the real problem. The United States sends more than a billion dollars a year to an organization which is manifestly our enemy, in which the ambassadors from most countries do not represent the will of their people, and in which graft and corruption are business as usual. Send the whole thing to Brussels.

I vote for Geneva, but Brussels would be okay too.

Related Posts:
Most/Least Corrupt Governments
Deport the United Nations
U.N.-Conscionable
The World Court Strikes Again
The U.N.'s Spam-ish Inquisition

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)

Of all the inanities of international relations, none has ever been or is likely to ever be as ridiculous as the United Nations Security Council.

And the preferred solution appears to be one of making the body even more inane:

Japan's drive to gain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is still alive, a Japanese UN delegate said, dismissing press reports that Tokyo planned to give up its bid for the time being after failing to win enough backing.
...
The G4 proposal calls for increasing council membership from 15 to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power -- one each for Brazil, Germany, India and Japan and two for the African region, and four non-permanent seats.
...
The United States, Japan's closest ally, has said it backs Japan's bid but not that of the three other G4 members. And China, Japan's chief regional rival, is adamantly opposed to Japan gaining a permanent seat, arguing that Tokyo must do more to show it regrets its militarist past.

A current Communist dictatorship that slaughtered and slaughters its own people, and invades and annexes peaceful neighbors while perpetually threatening others, demanding "more regretfulness" from a peaceful free nation over its long-dead fascist dictatorship past. Go figure.

Twelve simple words: "a theater of the absurd, a decomposing corpse, and an insane asylum."

My previous (and still held) views about other facets of proposed Security Council reform here and here.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of Israel's demand that Iran be expelled from the United Nations after its newly elected president called for Israel to be "wiped off the face of the world."

So far, we're at the diplomatic equivalent of DefCon 2 — the infamous "summoning" --

Britain's Foreign Office said Thursday it intended to summon Iran's charge d'affaires to protest Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling them "deeply disturbing and sickening."

Other world governments on Wednesday issued statements criticizing the Iranian's remarks, including Britain, Canada and Germany.

In Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos summoned Iran's ambassador to protest Ahmadinejad's comments. French Foreign Minister Jean-Baptiste Mattei also condemned the remarks "with the utmost firmness."

I'm sure the Israeli people will sleep soundly tonight knowing that the French are so utmostly firm in their inaction.

Of course, nothing can come of such a preposterous demand as limiting the United Nations to civilized, freedom-loving nations, since the uncivilized, freedom-hating dictatorship of China would block any such measure (as would, most likely, the only slightly less pathetic Russians).

Neither should one expect something creative from Washington, such as declaring Iranian leaders persona non grata in the U.S., thereby preventing them from physically reaching the U.N. headquarters. That would be too easy undiplomatic.

There are many ways to describe the United Nations. My favorite three are of course:

A theater of the absurd, a decomposing corpse and an insane asylum.

Incidentally, about 25% of that insane asylum is financed by the American taxpayer.

Talk about a bridge to nowhere...

More thoughts from California Yankee.

An example of what might be called the Reverse Groucho Marx* Rule:

Taiwan said it had launched its 14th bid to join the United Nations and urged the international body to grant the island a seat to help promote regional peace.
...
Taiwan was replaced by China in the world body in 1971. The island's previous annual efforts since 1993 to gain a UN seat have failed under objections from Beijing.
...
Beijing has threatened to invade should Taiwan declare formal independence.

To review: The autonomous, peaceful, capitalist, constitutional democracy of Taiwan is shut out of the U.N. and the bloodthirsty Communist dictatorship of mainland China is not only admitted but given a perpetual seat on the Security Council?

Moynihan's description of the U.N. is as true as ever: "a theater of the absurd, a decomposing corpse, and an insane asylum."

(*"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." --Groucho Marx)