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UN:
A reality check!
Swaraj
Singh
During
the recent meeting of the United Nations, one trend became
obvious that there was a clash between unilateral and mulitlatearal
approaches to the world’s problems. President Bush emerged as the
champion of the unilateralist approach, while the French President
Jaques Chirac emerged as a the leader of the multilateralist
approach. It was also clear that there was a lot of support for the
multilateralist approach. The United Nations’ secretary General ,
Kofi Anan and other world leaders seemed unanimous in supporting the
multilateral approach. These leaders expressed support for a concept
which sees the United Nations as a body expressing and exerting will
of global community. President Bush, on the other hand, expects the
United Nations to lend him support without giving it any real say in
making and implementing policies which effect rest of the world. It
seems that there was resentment to President’s policies because
many countries felt that while going into Iraq, ! he did not want to
accept advice from anybody but once his policies in Iraq have run
into difficulty then he wants everybody to help him to bail him out
without apologizing for the past performance and without promising
any real share in the control. This situation does not look like a
good deal to the other countries.
France
and Germany opposed the Iraq war while England, under the leadership
of Tony Blair, supported the war. France and Germany have emerged as
leaders of Europe whereas Mr. Tony Blair is in deep trouble. Not
only his popularity has taken a big beating , but England continues
to be marginalized in European affairs.
With
no weapons of mass destruction to show in Iraq and the American
intelligence agencies denying any relations of Saddam Hussein with
Al Qaeda, a growing number of Americans are asking the question,
"Why are we there?" With growing numbers of attacks on
American soldiers and with increasing numbers of the dead and the
wounded, frustrations with the war continues to grow. The recent
opinion polls are showing that more and more Americans are opposed
to the war and President Bush’s popularity rating continues to
slide.
Not
only President Bush rarely mentions Afghanistan, but also seems to
be backing down from his "Axis of Evil" theory. For all
practical purposes, plans to invade North Korea and Iran have been
abandoned for the time being. President Bush hardly mentioned North
Korea or Iran in his address to the United Nations. The media had
raised expectations of the outcome between talks between President
Bush and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin at Camp David. An
impression was left that President Putin is willing to compromise on
three important issues (i.e. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea). But
President Putin failed to give any concession on any one of these
issues. On Iraq, he did no agree to send any troops without a
resolution by the United Nations. He did not agree to cancel the 800
million dollar deal to set up a nuclear plant in Iran. He said that
without America giving guarantees of security to North Korea, he was
unwilling to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear pro! gram.
No wonder President Bush could hardly contain his frustration after
the talks.
It
is becoming increasing clear that Russia’s stands on major issues
are close to the French and the German stands. While Russia is
moving closer to the European Union in the West, in the East, it
continues to move closer to China and the Central Asian republics.
Beijing will become the headquarters of this new alliance of Russia,
China, and the Central Asian republics.The Indian
Primeminister,Vajpayee made it clear to President,Bush that India
can not send troops to Iraq without a resolution of the United
Nations and India would like to see uniform standards on terrorism.
The
European Union and China want a more multilateralist approach to
solve the world’s problems. Therefore, it is clear that balance of
power between unilateralism and multilateralism, is shifting towards
multilateralism.
At
the recent meeting of the general assembly of the United Nations,
most of the world leaders expressed views which shows that a
consensus seems to be emerging on some major issues. Many leaders
felt that by invading Iraq without a United Nations resolution,
America has undermined the prestige of the United Nations. Many
leaders also expressed the views that the important global issues
should be jointly addressed by the community of the nations. Uniform
standards to fight terrorism was another important message which
came out very strong. United States had vetoed a resolution against
Israel concerning the fate of Arafat but when the issue came to the
general assembly, the vote was 133 to 4 in the favor of the
resolution. This vote clearly shows that sentiment for
multilateralism and against unilateralism is running very high at
the United Nations.
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