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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: GST who wrote (146789)10/1/2004 7:42:14 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Saddam's invasion was overturned by the United Nations coalition. The United States joined in that effort as a member state of the United Nations.

You have that backwards. The US decided to overturn the invasion and then decided to get the UN to put its stamp of approval on this plan. If the UN did not want to overturn the invasion the US could have and likely would have done it anyway. If the US did not want to overturn the invasion the UN would most likely have done nothing, even if the US did not veto the action.
The US was the prime actor, other states where secondary actors, the UN stamp of a approval was a polite but not strictly necessary formality.

And when it was clear that the United Nations did not mandate an invasion and regime change in Iraq, and when we assessed the implications of waging an illegal and unilateral war with Iraq on our own

Wars are not illegal because the UN says they are. The UN is not sovereign over the world or the member states of the UN. The only way a war could be considered illegal is if it violated a signed and ratified agreement between states.

In any case even from the POC of the UN charter the US would not be required to get UN approval to kick Iraq out of Kuwait because the UN charter allows for use of force by a country to defend itself or another state. If every single member state (other then presumably the US and Kuwait) was 100% against the forcible removal of Saddam's army from Kuwait that would only have made the action unpopular (and very difficult) not illegal.

If the US did not decide to bring the issue up to the US there would have been less support from around the world, but there would have been no catastrophe, except for the catastrophe that befell Saddam's military and that happened anyway.

Tim
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