UNreformable 

By Fred Gedrich
May 15, 2006
The American Enterprise Online
Original Source: http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.19192/article_detail.asp


The Chairman of the U.S. House International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, recently remarked, “Waiting for the U.N. to reform itself is a fool’s errand,” as he proposed cutting off U.S. funding to prod the global body into adopting much-needed reforms. 
Most of the reforms recommended in 2005 by the U.S. Task Force on the U.N. (American Interests and U.N. Reform), co-chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, as well as those presented by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (In Larger Freedom) to the U.N. General Assembly’s 191 members the same year, have stalled. 
Reform is anathema to the majority of assembly members and the entrenched Secretariat’s senior bureaucracy. They thrive under the current system and seem more interested in obtaining and maintaining power, influence, money, and perks under the aegis of the U.N. rather than preventing conflicts and genocide, defeating terrorism, freeing the oppressed, and properly managing and dispensing resources entrusted to them.
Since the U.N.’s founding, there have been nearly 300 conflicts (e.g., wars) resulting in 22 million deaths. And today 2.3 billion people, one third of world’s population, are enslaved and oppressed. It’s not what the founders had in mind when proclaiming in 1945 that the U.N. would “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.”
The inability of the U.N. to function effectively, efficiently, and transparently is a long-standing problem. 
The Security Council is chartered with maintaining global peace but typically dawdles while millions die. Its colossal failures include not stopping Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons to kill his own countrymen and Iranian neighbors, and preventing Rwandans and Sudanese from committing genocide. China and Russia, two permanent members, are currently preventing other members from taking any action against Iran’s terrorist state as it proceeds to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons development in violation of the non-proliferation treaty.
The General Assembly has global human rights, international law, and disarmament in its portfolio. Among other things, its members 1) elected Sudan (through the Economic and Social Council) to three consecutive terms on the Human Rights Commission while Muslim leaders of that government employed genocide to suppress foes; 2) refused to define deliberate attacks on civilians as terrorism; and 3) appointed Iran’s terrorist state as Vice Chair of the Disarmament Commission after that nation’s unstable leader announced his country’s nuclear weapons ambition.
The Secretariat, responsible for managing the U.N., allowed up to $20 billion of the $67 billion Oil-for-Food Program to be diverted from its humanitarian purposes to bribes and kickbacks for greedy bureaucrats, politicians, and businessmen, and to acquire arms and palaces for a ruthless dictator. 
Substantive changes to the U.N. Charter and structure, like many of those proposed by the U.S. Task Force and the Secretary-General, must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the general assembly. The assembly is currently split into two main factions: free nations and those that are not. The free nations, led by the U.S., are the driving force behind the latest reform effort but they only have 87 possible votes—not even a majority, let alone two thirds. 
Those who suggest the U.S. could overcome this hurdle by resorting to diplomacy and dialogue to persuade recalcitrant members to act should be mindful that in 2005, assembly members collectively voted against U.S. supported positions 75 percent of the time. 
The chief obstacles to meaningful reform are the usual suspects. They belong to two large intertwined groups, the 132-nation G-77 and 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement, which are largely dominated by non-free governments sympathetic to failed Soviet-era socialist policies. They include the six countries designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist states: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. To illustrate the type of leadership preferred by these groups, in recent years Iran and Venezuela headed the G-77, and Cuba will lead the Non-Aligned Movement this year. 
U.N. loyalists, like the leaders of the U.N. Foundation, Oxfam International, Human Rights Watch, and other agenda-driven global elitists like Jeffrey Sachs in the “we know best for you” crowd, continue to insist that the global body represents mankind’s best hope. They should ask the 2.3 billion people currently living in Middle Eastern and African war zones and/or under the tight-fisted rule of tyrants if that’s true. 
The best hope of mankind is to encourage the development of more free states. President Bush has made it part of the U.S. National Security Strategy. Where freedom flourishes, war abates, and people prosper. The U.N. will not be capable of living up to its founding ideals as long as free nations are the minority in the general assembly.
The U.S. played the dominant role in the creation of the U.N. and Americans have been the organization’s chief benefactors and supporters. Last year, generous Americans provided over $3 billion to the U.N. system. A March 2006 Gallup Poll suggested they may be growing weary of U.N. shenanigans when 64 percent of respondents said the global body is doing a “poor” job. 
The stark truth is that in its current state, the U.N. is unreformable. It’s time to heed Chairman Hyde’s advice and turn off the funding spigot. And if that doesn’t work, use the funding instead to create an organization of free states truly interested in advancing the cause of peace, human rights, and freedom. 

Fred Gedrich is a foreign policy and national security analyst, former State Department official, and contributing author to War Footing.