Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 25, 2003|Volume 31, Number 27

UNIVERSITY TEACH-INS ON THE WAR WITH IRAQ

The U.N. will continue its global role, predict panelists

Although the Coalition of the Willing launched the war in Iraq without the full support of the United Nations Security Council, this has not seriously jeopardized the future of the international body, a panel of faculty experts concurred during a Sunday night discussion on April 13.

The faculty members -- Paul Kennedy, Charles Hill and James Sutterlin -- discussed the future of the United Nations as part of the University's series of teach-ins on the war. John Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, moderated the event, which drew a near-capacity crowd to the Luce Hall auditorium.

Sutterlin, a lecturer in political science and at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, told the audience that international disagreement over the war in Iraq has changed the "operating unity" of the Security Council that has existed since the end of the Cold War.

This unity discouraged any of the council's five permanent members (the United States, China, France, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom) from vetoing a motion made by another permanent member, explained Sutterlin, a former senior member of the U.N. Secretariat, a former foreign service officer and the author of several books about the United Nations.

Noting that the Soviet Union frequently used its power of veto to render the council "impotent" during the Cold War, Sutterlin maintained that the willingness of France to use its power of veto in the recent resolutions on the Iraqi conflict was different because "in effect, this veto threat actually represented the majority of views of the Security Council."

Sutterlin said that while the United Nations can effectively provide humanitarian aid and help keep the peace in Iraq, the biggest question is whether Security Council members can agree on the formation of a government authority in the country.

"[T]here has to be some form of Iraqi government authority that the Security Council can recognize as legitimate," Sutterlin said. "This means that the U.N. must have some role, at least, in the formation of this authority, as it did in Afghanistan." Given some members' opposition to the war, he noted, a U.S. military administration as an interim form of civil authority in Iraq may not be acceptable to the council.

Hill said that while France "did considerable damage" to the operating unity of the Security Council, the "United Nations is going to be just fine."

In fact, the international body was designed with "circuit breakers" that take into account "big power politics and the veto," asserted Hill, a visiting lecturer in the Yale Center for International and Area Studies who worked for the U.S. State Department and was special consultant to former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

While France "turned the principles of 17 Security Council resolutions upside-down," Hill said he believes President Bush effectively made the case that the United States was proceeding with the war in Iraq on the basis of previous U.N. resolutions. He maintained that France and Russia were acting out of their own political interests rather than a genuine concern about Iraq and realized that dealing with the problem of Iraq "was a free ride [since] the Americans were going to take care of this monster anyway."

The Yale lecturer said he believes that the United Nations has been misunderstood throughout most of its history.

"Those who love it the most and want it to do more are sometimes its most deadly enemies," he said. "They assume it is more than it is." He likened the U.N. to a plane that becomes shaky when it is forced to fly faster than its design can handle.

Hill said that the United States should turn to the U.N. to pass a resolution on the reconstruction of Iraq, refusing to let France "tie it up" with difficult demands, and should deal "seriously" with North Korea by gaining multilateral support through the United Nations. He also warned that any attempt by the United States to push for reforms to the United Nations at this point could "cause the U.N. more damage."

Hill contended that "bad governance" in countries throughout the world has led to serious global problems. In the Middle East, for example, "there is not one government that is not corrupt or rotten," he said.

"Our aim (in the U.S.) is not to impose democracy but to try to get better governments around the world, and you can't do it when you have people like Saddam Hussein in power," he said.

Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and director of International Security Studies, noted France's threat to veto any new resolution on the war in Iraq "even before seeing the new resolutions" shows that it is using the Security Council "as a way to constrain U.S. power in the world."

In going ahead with the war, he said, the United States and the United Kingdom angered most of the rest of the world.

"We talk about the Coalition of the Willing, but if you stack up the Coalition of the Willing and stack up the Coalition of the Unwilling, you have a pretty significant imbalance," Kennedy commented.

The way the debate on the war played out in the United Nations illustrates how the world perceives America's colossal power, Kennedy told the audience.

"This is a big deal, and our United Nations has never confronted this stark reality before," he said, noting that while the United States has less than 1/20th of the world's population, it represents 50% of the world's defense spending and 30% of the world's economy.

Kennedy said he is concerned about the "unhinging" of the original intents of the United Nations -- to form a security system against aggression and the destabilization of sovereign states; to advance economic prosperity throughout the world; and to advance cultural understanding of all the world's peoples.

"Now we have a Security Council that is out of joint and badly needs to be restored" and a world in which economic prosperity is "in considerable danger," said Kennedy. He said that in the sphere of cultural understanding, "we are in bad trouble, particularly with our relations with the Muslim world."

Kennedy said he believes "we are in desperate need of the United Nations in all of these three spheres."

Gaddis concluded the discussion by expressing his belief that President Bush, in a document outlining his administration's national security strategy, is returning to the very ideals and goals that led to the creation of the United Nations: a belief in the self-determination of nations, the protection of human rights and freedom from totalitarian regimes.

"Somehow that connection has been lost sight of," said Gaddis.

He noted that the transformation of the world resulting from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States -- which he called "the biggest terrorist attack ever on any nation" -- should be part of any discussion about the war on Iraq.

"If we are going to really deal with terrorism, we'll need to see this part of the world move toward democracy," he said.

Gaddis also contended that the real threat to the system of the United Nations is the "revolutionary ideology" of Islamist radicals, who are attempting to win over the entire Muslim world.

"We're seeing a civil war within the Muslim world between the Osama bin Ladens and those who are using the international system," Gaddis commented.

"The United States has just intervened in that civil war," he concluded. "If we are going to shore up our [international] system, we've got to defend it."

-- By Susan Gonzalez

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