A New Era for Diplomacy
Diplomacy, formerly the art of getting your own way though subtlety and understanding has latterly bastardised into a language of forked tongue, characterised by lies, deceptions, false promises and flattery of some of the most unsavoury characters around.
With the approval of John Bolton to be the US's ambassador to the UN, we can assume that diplomacy is about to get a whole lot less diplomatic, and that can only be a good thing, as something might get done on a global level.
Bolton's appointment is no small controversy, with baggage such as this behind him:
-The U.N.? ''There is no such thing as the United Nations.''
- Reform of the Security Council? ''If I were redoing the Security Council, I'd have one permanent member: the United States.''
- International law? "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law."
- Offering incentives to rogue states? "I don't do carrots."
Now perhaps our international bureaucrats might actually talk about issues that matter in a frank and meaningful way with a view to actually doing something instead of engaging in mutual tutting and issuing bland statements expressing "concern".
I'm not against having a UN as such, but if we do have one, I want it to do something rather than just talk about doing something. It makes me angry that something that proclaims to be so good does so little for so many. The successive failures of the UN, not least the inaction over the Darfur genocide (having declared in December 04 that "Genocide anywhere is a threat to the security of all and should never be tolerated" the UN commissioned a report in January 05 stating that the 70,000 corpses, all of the same ethnic origin, littering Darfur did not represent a genocide, so the UN were right not to intervene) to separate multilateral idealism from practical action have gone on long enough.
If any administrative body needed shaking up, it's the UN. And Bolton will certainly shake 'em up.
Thanks to Steyn for the Bolton quotes
With the approval of John Bolton to be the US's ambassador to the UN, we can assume that diplomacy is about to get a whole lot less diplomatic, and that can only be a good thing, as something might get done on a global level.
Bolton's appointment is no small controversy, with baggage such as this behind him:
-The U.N.? ''There is no such thing as the United Nations.''
- Reform of the Security Council? ''If I were redoing the Security Council, I'd have one permanent member: the United States.''
- International law? "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law."
- Offering incentives to rogue states? "I don't do carrots."
Now perhaps our international bureaucrats might actually talk about issues that matter in a frank and meaningful way with a view to actually doing something instead of engaging in mutual tutting and issuing bland statements expressing "concern".
I'm not against having a UN as such, but if we do have one, I want it to do something rather than just talk about doing something. It makes me angry that something that proclaims to be so good does so little for so many. The successive failures of the UN, not least the inaction over the Darfur genocide (having declared in December 04 that "Genocide anywhere is a threat to the security of all and should never be tolerated" the UN commissioned a report in January 05 stating that the 70,000 corpses, all of the same ethnic origin, littering Darfur did not represent a genocide, so the UN were right not to intervene) to separate multilateral idealism from practical action have gone on long enough.
If any administrative body needed shaking up, it's the UN. And Bolton will certainly shake 'em up.
Thanks to Steyn for the Bolton quotes
Surely if there's no such thing as the UN and he's ambassador to the UN then he won't do any shaking at all. Maybe he'll just stay in bed?
Posted by
Matt |
Tue Aug 02, 01:41:00 pm
On a less semantic and more serious note, it's not in the US's interest for them to have to clean up afdter the rest of the world. Having no UN, no international co-operation and a security council with one member will mean that the small victories Chris refers to won't happen. Resentment against the peaceful, stable and prosperous West will be easier to stir up, and there will be one main target - the sole member of the Security Council.
Co-operation is going to be a good idea for the US eventually. For one thing, nations at war will need all their sweatshop workers to kill other sweatshop workers from other countries. Then GAP prices will rise, and then what will the West do?
Posted by
Matt |
Tue Aug 02, 04:31:00 pm
Of course the UN does good things, that's what it's for.
I think the filters are on again. What I wrote was an advocacy of a straight-talker, and my hopes that his appointment could bring a fresh wave of honesty to a well meaning institution that is sinking underneath its own stagnant form of diplomatic showboating. What you saw was 'UN bad; neo-cons good'.
There are many, including a great number of American Conservatives, that would argue that America's interests are best served staying at home and minding its own business. Indeed, since the Berlin Wall came down, the thirty thousand or so US troops in Germany and the rest of Western Europe could probably serve the US's interests better elsewhere.
Instead, the policy-makers in the US administration have decided that the US's interests are better served democracising parts of the world that were previously prone to localised power-vacuums that create the right climate for extremists to plot, train, hide and recruit and to knock the shit out of bastards in strategically important places like Saddam. There are now two democracies in the Middle East, with the Lebanon seemingly on its way to making it three (a move that is in no small part linked to the January elections in Iraq, hence: strategically important). King Hussein of Jordan is now talking seriously about democratic reform. The Kuwaitis are under pressure to clean up their act on human rights, and Boy Assad is about as popular as a fart in a lift in Syria at the moment. Iran seems to be consistently two steps away from a democratic revolution and perhaps this nutter Ahmadinejad will finally provoke one.
It may be distasteful that we got here unilaterally, and we could argue forever over whether we would have got here at all using the multilateral bureaucratic framework in place at the UN, but -right or wrong- here we are. The UN could play a magnificent role in helping to capitalise on the status quo to bring democracy and human rights improvements to all of the above countries and more. I hope it does and I think that with Bolton on board now they have a better chance of getting things done than with the tepid, carping talking shop they had become.
Yes, of course it should be the UN leading on stuff like Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Boxing Day tsunami, but they didn't. If the UN is to ever be the immense force for good that it could be, then it needs to stop talking about the big things, and do them.
Posted by
Ben |
Wed Aug 03, 10:22:00 am