(Your Voice in a World where Zionism, Steel, and Fire have
turned Justice Mute)

by Hazem Biqaeen, USA

President Bush has threatened, on more than one occasion, that if the United Nations does not act on Iraq (that is, if it does not endorse his planned unprovoked war), it risks becoming irrelevant. The implication clearly being that the United States intends to attack Iraq, with or without UN approval, and that the UN's best chance to avert "irrelevance" is to give the attack pseudo-legal justification.

But the very fact that the United States is in a position to make such a threat means that the UN has already become irrelevant. One should recall the times that the US has attacked a sovereign country without UN approval - I mention Panama, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan as recent examples. UN relevance is dictated, like most other things, by the actual balance of power, not by some abstract legal superstructure, nor by mere threats issued by one member or another.

In effect, we are being asked to believe that as soon as the US gets what it wants, it is going to give up privileges acquired through blackmail and restore the UN's "relevance" for good, against all common sense and in spite of the US's track record.