Saudi Arabia has raised eyebrows at the United Nations over its decision not to accept a rotating place on the Security Council. Riyadh’s reasoning is that it is opposed to recent overtures between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear programme. The decision to join or not to join is Saudi Arabia’s to take. But there is a greater issue that needs to be addressed over the whole composition, functions and failures of the Security Council.
It’s been nearly seven decades since the UN was established out of the ruins of post-Second World War Europe. The five permanent members retain veto powers that reflect their position as victors in 1945. Since then, the world has changed, and do the US, UK, France, Russia and China fully deserve their right to determine global foreign policies — or the action or inaction of the UN itself?
Over the past five decades, the Security Council’s five permanent members have tarnished its collective and their individual reputations with spineless vetoes and failure to act on Palestine or against the interests of Israel.
How many motions of sanction against Israel have come to nothing because of US vetoes determined by the adverse and perverse influence of the Jewish lobby in the corridors of power in Washington? Those who are shouting the loudest at Riyadh should look at their own pitiful record in the glasshouse of the Security Council before casting stones elsewhere.
