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UN won't help Obama
The US president will likely discover that the best he can do at the world body is smile, shake hands - and learn to work around it
- By David Bosco-Los Angeles Times
- Published: 23:10 September 16, 2009
Barack Obama's approval ratings may be sagging at home, but when he arrives at the United Nations next week for the annual General Assembly meeting in New York, the US president will be on unmistakably friendly turf.
In just a few months, the new administration has helped the UN forget the jeremiads of Bush-era envoy John Bolton, who once mused that losing the top 10 floors of the 39-storey UN headquarters on the East River "wouldn't make a bit of difference". The United States has joined a UN human-rights panel that the Bush team shunned and has even praised the International Criminal Court, which president George W. Bush did his best to ignore. "We have paid the price of stiff-arming the UN and spurning our international partners," declared Susan Rice, the new US ambassador to the UN, in a recent speech.
The East River crowd may have reason to love America again, but it's not clear that Obama should expect much help from the UN, or from its powerful 15-member Security Council, in dealing with North Korea, Iran, Georgia, Myanmar or other hot spots. Throughout its history, the Security Council has been good at helping the big powers not step on one another's toes, but very bad at tackling tough problems such as the Middle East, weapons proliferation, weak states and humanitarian emergencies.
Obama, who on September 24 will become the first American president to chair a meeting of the council, may soon learn that the best he can do at the UN is smile, shake hands - and learn to work around it.
Obama is not the first new commander in chief eager to employ the UN. The Clinton administration came to office determined to work through the organisation whenever possible, and secretary of state Warren Christopher's first trip was to UN headquarters. Just a year later, the Clintonites were accusing the UN of flubbing the Somalia operation, clashing with close allies on the Security Council over Bosnia and sniping with then-secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who later charged that Washington had sought to run the organisation by diktat.
The recriminations reflected an uncomfortable truth: The Security Council is ineffective - often tragically so - as a mechanism for managing world security. Its mandate is to 'maintain international peace and security', but its efforts usually produce lowest-common-denominator compromises between the major powers. Witness the shambolic peacekeeping mission in the Balkans during the early 1990s, the porous and mismanaged sanctions against Iraq, and the halting efforts to control North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
For many UN-watchers, these failures are reason enough to condemn the organisation as worse than useless. And though critics usually hail from the political right, plenty of progressives despair as well.
This frustration, though understandable, misses the Security Council's most enduring value. As a great-power clubhouse, the council promotes a habit of consultation among leading nations. American diplomats dial up their Russian and Chinese counterparts more than they would otherwise, for instance, because they need each other's votes on a range of issues before the council.
The obfuscation and ambiguity that often make Security Council resolutions so ineffective can at least allow the great powers to give a show of marching in step.
The council's often maddening sluggishness can also be a virtue. During the Cuban missile crisis, a series of scheduled Security Council meetings gave president John F. Kennedy an additional argument for resisting immediate military action. "Prolonged discussion lessened the chance that one side would lash out in a spasm and do something foolish," concluded Kennedy's secretary of state, Dean Rusk. "The UN earned its pay for a long time to come just by being there for the missile crisis."
At the very least, the council provides a ready forum for big-power diplomacy. During the 1967 and 1973 Middle East conflicts, the superpowers used the council to keep from getting entangled in the fighting.
Today, the Obama administration should resist the temptation to frame each international crisis as a do-or-die test for the UN. Despite the new administration's professed affection for the UN - and its reluctance to do anything that may smack of Bush-like unilateralism - over time Obama may end up emulating his successor and going it alone. The Chinese resist humanitarian interventions on sovereignty grounds; the council members differ sharply over nuclear proliferation; and the Russians may clash again with Georgia or Ukraine, paralysing the council.
When Obama enters the council chamber, he'll be sending a valuable signal that America recognises the body's lasting importance. But he should keep one eye on the exits.
David Bosco, an assistant professor of international politics at American University, is the author of Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World.
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