17 minutes ago
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Expanding the League
In the midst of tedious committee meetings at the United Nations this week, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer announced that his country along with Brazil, India, and Japan all deserve to be permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. "The Security Council must further reflect the reality within the community of nations in the 21st century," he said (my translation). But would this make America's role in the world easier or more difficult? On the one hand, Germany and Brazil (under president Lula da Silva) would likely veto anything related to the Bush doctrine. On the other hand, India and Japan might offset such future diplomatic hostilities and prove useful allies within the council. Many other critical issues remain: Would China really allow Japan to join? And do new members get to wear the special jackets? Access to the Players' Lounge? Free comps at the Waldorf-Astoria?
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2 comments:
The best possible U. S. policy for dealing with the U. N. Security Council is to make sure that it never does anything again, and I really do mean anything. We should continue to pay our U. N. dues to preserve our veto and we should employ our veto to paralyze that abomination. And as far as new permanent memberships are concerned, from the U. S. point of view who the hell cares.
It is now 60 years -- more than two generations -- since the end of World War II in Europe. We now have, the one-worlders would argue, a single European nation. Fine, give it a single seat on the Security Council. Why should France, with a population and economy roughly the size of Brooklyn's, have veto power into perpetuity? Because of the war and what happened to France? By that logic Israel would have a greater claim to a permanent seat.
When the U.N. was founded, a permanent Security Council seat was given to the Soviet Union. News flash -- there's no Soviet Union anymore, so the seat should have been dissolved and not meekly turned over to Russia. Soon India will have more people than China, so why not transfer its permanent seat to India? And what about Indonesia? Brazil?
Deport the United Nations.
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