Issue No. 613
International
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21 - 27 November 2002 Issue No. 613 International |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | |||
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Life after 1441
With the United States seemingly determined to turn the UN into a rubber-stamp global body, and the Arab League obviously befuddled. Does either organisation have a future? Hassan Nafaa* ponders the question
The Iraqi crisis has taken both the United Nations and the Arab League into dire straits from which they may not emerge unscathed. For both organisations, Iraq is not just another crisis; it is a do-or-die situation. If mishandled, this crisis would provide conclusive evidence that both the United Nations and the Arab League are not qualified to do the job they are trusted with, and this could be the beginning of the end for them.
As the fate of the UN and the League hangs in the balance, resolution 1441 looms ominously, threatening to expose the inherent failures of both organisations. The UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 unanimously. The only Arab country sitting at the Security Council, Syria, voted for it, and the Arab League's foreign ministers have welcomed the resolution, calling on Iraq to cooperate with it. The latter said it would.
Yet, 1441 is a slightly altered form of a US draft resolution that both the UN and the League had strongly objected to. Initially, both organisations saw the resolution as exceeding international norms and worked hard to bring it in line with these norms. Over the past few weeks, the UN seemed determined to retain its mandate for defending international peace and security and avoid becoming a rubber-stamp for US global designs. The Arab League, for its part, cringed at the prospect of handing a key member state to the tender mercies of Washington.
What we ended up with is a resolution that fails to rehabilitate the UN credibility as an international arbiter or to restore confidence in the Arab League's capacity to look after its member states. Resolution 1441, at close examination, is not much different from the draft submitted earlier by the United States. The resolution starts off by treating Iraq as a country guilty, not just suspected, of violations. Iraq, it claims, is in continuous violation of previous resolution passed by the Security Council in accordance of Chapter 7. The resolution does not ask international inspection committees to prove the existence of mass destruction weapons in Iraq. It makes this the task of the Iraqi government. The latter is required to prove that Iraq has no such weapons. Iraq is thus forced to disclose not just its alleged mass destruction weapons programmes, but anything that it does, even activities unrelated to weapons production.
It is true that resolution 1441 does not adopt the US request for the inspection teams to work under the protection of international forces, but the other demands incorporated in the resolution are quite provocative, and perhaps impossible to implement. The entire inspection process is likely to resemble a police raid. It aim will be to debunk the Iraqi government and bring back sufficient evidence for its indictment and eventual arrest.
The only substantial difference between the US draft and resolution 1441 is that the latter stops short from sanctioning automatic military action if Iraq were to fail to cooperate. This omission has been hailed as a laudable achievement, a step toward defusing the crisis. Is the optimism justifiable? The wording of 1441 is so vague on that particular point that the United States would be tempted to interpret it as it pleases. The resolution makes it clear that the UN Security Council will follow up the crisis and look into the reports submitted by the heads of the two inspection teams. What 1441 fails to make clear is whether the Security Council would issue a further resolution delineating the punitive measures or "grave consequences" taken against Iraq if its cooperation is deemed inadequate. Such was the additional proviso that France included in its own draft, the one that was never submitted to the vote.
In other words, the Security Council intends to convene and discuss the outcome of the inspection, but it is not required to pass another resolution saying, for example, that Iraq has breached 1441 and specifying the measures to be taken against it. According to the UN charter, punitive measures should be taken under the supervision of the Security Council. This does not seem to be happening here. Practically speaking, resolution 1441 gives the United States the freedom to act as it wishes at the slightest indication by the inspection teams that Iraq is fooling around. This brings us back to square one, to the spirit of the US draft that has been turned down.
Click to view captionA US army Paladin 155mm self-propelled howitzer is refuelled during exercises in the Kuwait desert . About 10,000 US troops are engaged in the exercises just 50 kilometres from the Iraqi border What the past six weeks of deliberations in the backrooms of the Security Council prove is that the global balance of power has tilted so much that the United Nations is no longer capable of playing any credible role in arbitrating international affairs or sorting out problems that threaten world peace and stability. Perhaps the UN was never up to the forceful role envisioned in its chapter, and perhaps it international clout was always inadequate, even eroding, but it always had a role. Now, it seems that the erosion has gone too far, that the UN is becoming a perfunctory landmark on the highway of US global politics.
The UN charter was put together in San Francisco just before the end of World War II. At the time, the leadership of the global system has fallen to the victors: the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. The charter, therefore, envisioned a collective mechanism for the maintenance of world peace that matched the existing balance of power. With the subsequent shift in the global power structure, this mechanism began to falter.
The Iraqi case is an unfortunate reminder of the UN eroding power in the face of US machinations. Back when Iraq was launching a war against Iran, the UN stood idly by, while the US supported Iraq both secretly and publicly. And when the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons against the Kurds, neither the UN nor the US lifted a finger. At that time, the US didn't have the power to tell the UN what to do, but it had the power to prevent it from doing the right thing. By the time Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Soviet Union was breathing its last, and the US had the opportunity to impose its global hegemony. Washington used the "new world order" rhetoric to revive the role of the Security Council, which had stagnated during the Cold War. And, as soon as it obtained the resolutions it wished for, the US began acting unilaterally on Iraq, fomenting the crisis or forgetting about at will.
The last few months of the Iraqi crisis saw something akin to rebellion on the part of the UN, a last sigh perhaps. Resolution 1441 put an end to that. The jury may yet be out, but the US, which has threatened to change the Iraqi regime by force, with or without UN consent, is now in full control, and with UN blessing. If the US actually succeeds in changing the Iraqi regime by force and redrawing the regional map, this would end whatever credibility -- or life - the UN still have.
The same fate may be awaiting the Arab League. The regional organisation born half a century ago, only a few months ahead of the UN, to defend Arab interests is now incapable of protecting a major Arab state whose sovereignty and very existence are under US-UK threat. The League has had its ups and downs, but this is the first time it looks so utterly powerless, so much so that certain Arab countries have formally applied for a cancellation of their membership.
Both the UN and the League now stand on quick sand. Yet, the pressures that makes the ground give under their feet are not identical. The UN is teetering because a superpower is pushing it about. The League is falling apart because of a lack of leadership, collective or otherwise. Relentless bickering among the contenders for Arab leadership has brought the Arab collective system to its knees.
Iraq has always coveted leadership. The rivalry that ensued between that country and other Arab contenders has traditionally been contained within the boundaries of higher common interest. One rule of thumb that everyone has abided to for decades was to keep foreign intervention at bay. For instance, when Iraq threatened to invade Kuwait in the early 1960s, the Arab system managed to contain the crisis and close the door to foreign intervention. Unfortunately, things changed. The self-restraint that characterised inter-Arab rivalry and kept the system together has collapsed. Two signs of this collapse were El-Sadat's decision to visit Jerusalem in 1977 and Saddam's decision to invade Kuwait.
The two decisions differ in their motives and implications. Both, however, shook the Arab world in a drastic manner. One can still sense the repercussions of Egypt's signing of the peace treaty with Israel and the resentment the Arab world felt at the time. The impact of Iraq's invasion to Kuwait and the advent of foreign troops to liberate the latter is all too evident. It is perhaps ironic that the same leadership that championed Arab opposition to al- Sadat's unilateral peace initiative was the one that invaded Kuwait.
It took the Arab system years of strenuous efforts to contain the divisive aftermath of Egypt's unilateral peace initiative, and it is yet unable to sort out the aftermath of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Needless to say, both events have benefited Israel and the United States.
Arab foreign ministers have responded to resolution 1441 by calling on Iraq to comply. One thing they didn't do was pledge that their countries would not provide military help in any strike against Iraq. This is an omission that cannot be taken lightly. Now, we have a United Nations that cannot do more to restrain the Americans than pass half- hearted resolutions. And we have an Arab League that cannot muster enough courage to do more than call on Iraq to comply. With this in mind, how could either organisation withstand the next crisis that may come crashing at their door any time? And, how could they expect to survive?
* The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
Related stories:
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The wait before the wall
No spying this time
Whither Arab independence?
The bike shop's door
Eliminated or postponed?
A pretext for war? 14 - 20 November 2002
UNSC Resolution 1441
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