From: Wei Dai (weidai@weidai.com)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 11:58:44 MST
On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 07:32:26PM +1100, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> My argument here is based on a line of reasoning from 1441 that is
> available for anyone to check in the original post. My argument is that
> the US signed over authority to interpret the meaning of key terms
> such as "one final opportunity", "further material breach" and "serious
> consequences" to the Security Council when they signed off on 1441.
Are you sure this is an argument that you want to push? Suppose you
succeed and everyone accepts this argument. Now if the U.S. does go to war
without a second resolution, the U.N. is finished. On the other hand if
everyone accepts Holbrooke's "spin" that a second resolution is not
necessary, the U.N. will survived this episode. Given that the U.S.
government seems determined to invade Iraq even without a second
resolution, wouldn't you prefer the latter?
I wonder if there are some in the Bush administration who would rather see
the Security Council totally discredited so that it can create a new
Security Council from scratch. The fact that France, a medium-sized
country in Europe, has veto power doesn't really make sense to me, and
neither does the fact that the non-permanent members seem to be selected
more or less randomly. Does anyone have any ideas about how the Security
Council might be redesigned more rationally?
P.S. There is a great article about Kofi Annan and the U.N. in the current
issue (dated 2003-03-03) of the New Yorker magazine.
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