As reported in the Washington Post today, the U.N. General Assembly has suspended voting for a week as it tries to find a solution to the deadlock caused by competing bids for membership on the Security Council from Venezuela and Guatemala. Guatemala, backed by the United States, has led over 35 rounds of voting, but has yet to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. Some have predictably and irrationally labeled this as an example of UN inaction. This claim not only betrays a basic misunderstanding of the workings of international politics but of the overwhelming benefit of multilateral versus unilateral outcomes both for the United States and the rest of the world.
"Americans show a strong preference for Congressional candidates who would seek to increase multilateral cooperation. Seventy-two percent say they would prefer candidates who believe that "the U.S. should do its share in efforts to solve international problems together with other countries." Much less popular are candidates who want the United States to "continue to be the preeminent world leader" (9% support) or to "withdraw from most efforts to solve international problems" (16%)." More
"Despite the deteriorating security situation in Darfur, a new United Nations assessment has found that overall malnutrition levels have mostly stabilized in 2006 and food insecurity has improved slightly thanks to a stronger international response to the suffering in Sudan's war-torn west. Crude mortality dropped for the third year running, but insecurity and lack of access to many Darfurians continued to cloud the aid picture." More
Writing in the National Review Online, Mario Loyala suggests that South Korea's policy toward the North means that the new Secretary General will be an agent of Chinese interests at the UN. His argument is basically this: because Beijing and Seoul have strategies for confronting North Korea that are more similar to each other than to America's own strategy for dealing with the regime, South Korea's foreign minister-turned-next Secretary General will stand up for Chinese interests as a whole at the UN. This is a quite a sweeping assertion, particularly as it is based on an extrapolation from precisely one circumstance in which the foreign policy interests of these two countries temporarily align.
After taking issue with Ted Turner's positive take on the UN's handling of the North Korea crisis, Schraged at Redstate asks, "Can anyone Provide any evidence that the UN has ever actually accomplished anything beyond spending US Tax Dollars, providing a platform for Terrorists and Tinpot dictators to spew the Anti-American filth, and provide a retirement for corrupt burocrats [sic] like Kofi Anan [sic]?"
I can.
CNN: "Blaming the United States for instigating U.N. Security Council sanctions against it, North Korea on Tuesday called the resolution approved over the weekend a "declaration of war."
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that the country wants "peace but is not afraid of war."
IHT: "Media mogul Ted Turner sought on Monday to impress upon young Americans the importance of the United Nations, saying those who would weaken the world body are "undermining our future."