Things like this, you're better off going with friends ....
Friends? Like who? Would you be referring to the French, Germans, and Russians, all of whom had tremendous financial interests in preserving the Baathist regime in Iraq?
Who acted in almost every manner possible to undermine the UN sanctions against Iraq so they would prove ineffective (if not already inherently flawed in their implementation)??
Who acted, even as recently as last January, to sign multi-billion dollars deals with the Baathists, as a pay-off for opposing any form of military enforcement of the various UNSC binding resolutions against Iraq?
The fact that these binding resolutions even passed the UNSC is indicative that none of our "friends" could provide convincing evidence to dispute the potential existence, and/or risk, of Iraq's WMD program. Had they possessed such evidence, they could have plausibly opposed these sanctions in public and vetoed those resolutions.
What they did instead, was to set the UN up for failure. To create binding resolutions that they had no intention of enforcing. To undermine the credibility and authority of the UN councils..
To turn the UN into a spineless and ineffectual mechanism for maintaining international order and security.
the current UN doesn't work, i granted you that right off
The way you make the UN work is to publicly shame its leadership into enforcing its binding mandates, as Bush did in Iraq.
I mean, come one.. it's a no-brainer.. The UN required Iraq to prove that it's disarmed. And to achieve this, there needed to be complete confidence Saddam was not deceiving the UN. SADDAM WAS REQUIRED TO CREATE THAT TRUST, not the UN. It was NOT the responsibility of the UNSCOM/UNMOVIC inspectors to carry out investigations and intelligence operations in order to obtain this proof.
Thus, the minute it became apparent that Saddam had continued to deceive the UN, it should have been a direct military threat of regime change, not economic sanctions which should have been pursued. Only such a course would provide a reasonable chance of effecting compliance from Saddam.
But it wasn't going to happen so long as Saddam held out hope of undermining the UN resolutions via his extorsion/bribery of our "Friends" (as you refer to them).
"You want Iraqi oil all to yourselves? Oppose the UN resolutions, and/or act to undermine them in order to preserve my regime".
And that's just what our "friends" did, Marcos.. And our other "friends" such as Chrietien, and others, chose the cowards way out, preferring an ineffectual and toothless UN organization, rather than enforcing its binding resolutions.
Hawk |
