I was going to declare this “No Iraq Posts Day,” since I kind of dove headlong back into those waters over the weekend, but this thought (in considering something Scott commented upon about Howard Dean’s presidential candidacy today) struck me. It’s been said before, but I think it’s worth saying again.
What’s the value of a UN resolution on a war on Iraq?
Would a UNSC resolution giving a green light to an Iraq war make such a war suddenly morally sound? Or make it abruptly practical and advisable?
Would the anti-war protesters actually quiet down?
Is China, occupier of Tibet and crusher of internal dissent, be the arbiter of moral rectitude in international affairs?
Should Russia, that bastion of democracy and blood-slogger of Chechnya, be considered the people we should seek a blessing from?
Should France, host to Mugabe, unilateralist in its former Ivory Coast colony, and tester of above-ground nuclear weapons, be the folks who review and approve our foreign policy?
Would I prefer to see a strong, new UN resolution explicitly allowing force to disarm Iraq, fulfilling the dozens of other resolutions that it has passed, previously? Sure. It would be nice to think that others agree with us. My ego is not so big as to think that ours is the only opinion that matters. I like validation. But when seeking validation turns into shunning responsibility, that’s unhealthy. Believe me, I know.
Because, ultimately, the US has to be responsible for its own actions. It can’t depend on the UN to vet its foreign policy. It can’t abrogate its own interest and perceptions of the world to the UN Security Council’s own interests and perceptions.
Folks accuse the Bush administration of playing politics with lives, of thinking only of its own national interests. Does anyone think that Beijing is threatening a veto out of some sense of international compassion and bonhomme? Does anyone actually think that Russia is withholding support because of the moral complexities of armed conflict? Does anything really think that France’s stand is based on deep-seated principles and an abiding love of humanity?
Or is it just a conflation of self-interests that, at the moment, means those countries evaluate their own interests as being opposed to the US?
“But it will cause chaos,” you say. “It threatens the world political and economic order.”
How is that not a practical, pragmatic stand? How is that any more defensible a moral position than the (alleged) desire of the US to grab hold of some of that thar oil? If the Europeans are worried that the price of oil will go up, and are basing their stand on that self-interest, why should that self-interest trump our own?
You can argue, hypothetically, whether removal of the present regime in Baghdad, and its threat of WMDs and regional dominance, is better or worse than the disruption and destruction of a war now, but that’s an argument of pragmatism, not morality.
Why, then, is getting a UNSC resolution so important to some people?
Because they want someone else to tell us it’s okay? Not a very noble stand. Given the UN’s history of standing aside in the face of wholesale genocide (Yugoslavia, Rwanda), waiting for everyone there to tell us it’s okay seems a cowardly position to take. If it’s right, it’s right, right? It’s not only right if France says it’s right.
Or do some people cling to the need for (yet another) UNSC resolution because they don’t think it’s forthcoming, and thus it’s an easy way to stand against the war without having to defend Iraq? How many of those people, should the US actually manage to swing a resolution, will then say that the Security Council knuckled under to US pressure, and that the war is still wrong?
If you think the war is wrong, then it’s wrong whether the UN says it’s okay or not. If you think it’s right, then it’s right whether the UN says it’s okay or not. The UN is not Solomon, passing judgment on good and evil. It’s a place for folks to get together and hash out differences and agree on joint activities. That’s what it says in the charter. Nothing more (but, one would hope, nothing less).