What the world (body) needs now

Decision Brief     No. 05-D 16                                           2005-04-11

(Washington, D.C.): The early returns are in: A number of retired U.S. diplomats, George Soros and the renamed World Federalist Association (now doing business as Citizens for Global Solutions) think what is needed now is less an American ambassador to the United Nations than an advocate for the UN’s dismal status quo assigned as a representative to the Bush Administration.

Fortunately, President Bush believes very differently. He understands that the United Nations needs – now more than ever – the United States to have as its ambassador there someone who is not only a seasoned and highly skilled diplomat, deeply knowledgeable about the institution and the preeminent organizational and substantive challenges it faces. The times also require an individual who will represent with energy, intellectual prowess, articulateness and, yes, when necessary, assertiveness the interests of the United States at UN headquarters.

What Ails the UN

Specifically, as Mr. Bush has made clear repeatedly – and most pointedly in his past three annual appearances before the UN General Assembly – the United States wants to realize the promise of the founding principles of the so-called “world body.” These are enshrined in the inspiring opening phrases of the UN Charter that speak of “the peoples of the United Nations'” determination to spare future generations the “scourge of war” by: “reaffirm[ing] faith in fundamental human rights…, establish[ing] conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and…promot[ing] social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom….” (Emphasis added.)

As Mr. Bush put it on September 21, 2004: “Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent. And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice – between right and wrong – is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.”

The Bush-Bolton View

To be sure, this is a very different vision of what the UN is supposed to be – and can yet become. Some diplomats, international bureaucrats and other practitioners of real politique effectively insist that the duty of the United Nations is not to advance freedom, but to enshrine and protect the status quo. Regrettably, for most of the UN’s history, the only exception has been in cases where Communists and other authoritarians of the Left (notably, the likes of Leonid Brezhnev, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and Hafez Assad) were at best accommodated and at worst lionized by the “world body” for their aggression at freedom’s expense.

President Bush is clearly committed to having the United Nations, with the active and constructive support of the United States, return to first principles. He appreciates that this is perhaps the most promising moment in the nearly sixty years since the UN was created to effect the sorts of systemic reforms that would be entailed.

Mr. Bush appreciates that such reforms are needed not only to correct the worst abuses in the organization’s history (the notorious Oil-for-Food program that corruptly kept Saddam Hussein a going concern, the UN peacekeeper rape squads in Congo and elsewhere, the acts of corruption, misconduct and malfeasance at the highest levels of the institution’s bureaucracy, including the Secretary General’s own family, etc.) They are also needed if the United Nations is to help promote freedom by ending tyranny, protecting human dignity, encouraging economic opportunity and creating the conditions under which international law deserves – and actually enjoys – widespread respect.

Tough Love for the UN

To advance this quintessentially American, and most necessary, agenda at the UN, President Bush has wisely chosen John Bolton. Like Mr. Bush, Secretary Bolton recognizes how far from its founding principles the UN has strayed. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Bolton believes that the UN could be a force for real good in the world if it were able to return to and act upon those principles. And Mr. Bolton may be uniquely capable of assuring the continuing support of many millions of Americans disaffected by what has become of this “world body” – by demonstrating, in the exemplary tradition at the UN of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, that our ambassador there will fearlessly say and do what he must to effect such change.

The Bottom Line

Perhaps the most eloquent recognition of the value of John Bolton’s appointment came last month from Tim Wirth, Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and now the president of the Ted Turner-financed UN Foundation: