Perhaps because the UN is the governing body in such international problems and not the US, contrary to what a lot of Americans seem to think?
I suspect that the number of people really wanting to hand governance of international problems over the UN (especially considering their record) is very very small. The number of people looking about to put some kind of check onto US power, any sort of brake that can be dressed up with legitimacy, on the other hand...
Did any of these new believers in UN supremacy complain when the US & NATO bombed Serbia without any UN authorization? Where were they when UN peacekeepers stood by and watched a massacre in Srebenica or hightailed it out of the way before the Rwandan genocide?
As for myself, I have long regarded the UN as an unelected dictators club. Talk to me about UN legitimacy when only democracies can join. Until then, I refuse to believe that US foreign policy is made more legitimate by having Syria vote for it.
The best strategy would be for the US, the only superpower of this planet, to step in and apply equal pressure on both sides for a peace plan that is equally painful and equally acceptable to both sides. That's it.
And what of Hamas? and what of Hizbullah? and what of Al Qaeda? you keep talking as if there were only two sides involved. If that were true, the US might have a chance at imposing a peace. But it's not true and you know it's not true.
The hard problem is not getting the Israelis to withdraw -- they put withdrawal offers on the table at Camp David and Taba. (Though I doubt they will get quite as good an offer again; the security wall is not following the Green Line exactly) The hard part is convincing the Israelis that a non-terrorist Palestinian state will result from a withdrawal.
Otherwise, if you just force the Israelis to withdraw, you might get a year's truce, while a triumphant Hizbullah recruits all over the MiddeEast, then begins the next terrorist campaign. Then Israel will be forced to reconquer the territories to keep the terrorist attacks down. How do you create a Palestinian democracy that answers to the desires of the Palestinians, that is the question? there is no hope of peace without it. Thus the argument that the "road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad". |
