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How the Iraq war
harmed the UN

By Ramesh Thakur

'Twas a Dickens of a year for the United Nations - the worst of times and the best of times. The advocates of war condemned us for failing to enforce Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions; opponents faulted us for failing to punish the aggressors.

Pre-war polls consistently showed that for most people in the world, UN blessing was the circuit-breaker in endorsing the war option. After the war, most people still look to the UN as our best hope for unity in a world of infinite diversity, where global problems require multilateral solutions.

To Washington, the US wasn't turning its back on world opinion - the world had become anti-American. Iraq was ruled by a rogue who had long pursued the clandestine acquisition of weapons of mass destruction; used biochemical weapons against his own citizens and neighbours; perpetrated horrific human rights atrocities; attacked Iran and invaded and annexed Kuwait; and defied the UN for 13 years. 

The crisis with North Korea proved the wisdom of dealing with Saddam Hussein before he got his hands on nuclear or other equally powerful weapons; to wait for the morning after would surely have been nuclear folly.

All acknowledged the need to confront Saddam; most ruled out acting without UN authorisation. The Security Council is not an authorisation tap to be turned on and off at the whim of its most powerful member. 

Another argument held UN authorisation as necessary but not sufficient. There was grave disquiet that the UN was being subverted to a predetermined agenda for war. Reasons for the strong anti-war sentiment included doubts over the stated justification; anxiety about its incalculable toll, course and consequences in an already inflamed region;
and scepticism that the US can stay engaged - politically, economically and militarily - for the years of reconstruction required after war. The first has been strongly vindicated, the second shown to have been exaggerated, and the jury is still out on the third.

The United Nations is not congenitally anti-American. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, it strongly supported the war to eject the Iraqis.

Last year the crisis was seen to be the result of US belligerence, not Iraqi aggression. If the Security Council had authorised war, it would have been seen to have caved in to American threats and bribes. People look to the UN to stop war, not wage one.

Sometimes war will be necessary. The will to wage war will weaken if force is used recklessly, unwisely and prematurely. 

The Iraq war ruptured US relations with traditional allies and friends of long standing and proven reliability; damaged the three great institutions of the last half-century - the European Union, NATO and the UN - to have overseen peace and prosperity; squandered the spontaneous and universal goodwill for the US after September 11, incited fanatical hatred of US policy in parts of the world instead; and reintroduced deep domestic divisions.

Legitimacy is the conceptual rod that connects power to authority. On Iraq, the US and the UN provoked a legitimacy crisis about each other: of American power and UN authority.

The certainty of moral clarity put the Administration on a course that seriously eroded its moral authority for the exercise of US power in the world. The lack of a sense of moral clarity diminished the UN's moral authority.

The UN is the arena for collective action, not a forum where nations that are unable to do anything individually get together to decide that nothing can be done collectively. 

The UN and the US share an interest in isolating and defeating terrorism, not each other; in containing the threat of weapons of mass destruction; and in promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Iraq, the Middle East and the world.

Ramesh Thakur is Senior Vice-Rector of UN University and Assistant Secretary-General of the UN. This commentary first appeared in the January 15 edition of The Age, Melbourne. These are his personal views. 

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