Molly over-simplifies. It's not _all_ our friends. It's just a couple who have been questionable friends for quite some time.

I think there is a plausible case for the UN to use troops to enforce its resolutions. I would prefer to live in a world where UN resolutions meant something, and governments felt like they had to comply with them.

I do not live in that world, and the US deciding that it will unilaterally attack Iraq under the guise of enforcing these resolutions does not bring me any closer to that world. It brings me to a world where the dominant power of the age decides that it doesn't have a use for the United Nations any more and destroys it rather than let its own exercise of power be bound. The administration's attitude seems to be that the proper behavior of the UN should be to go along with what the US decides (which would, in essence, make it an irrelevant adjunct to the US --- a formality of international cooperation as meaningless as the formality of Senatorial control of Rome in the third century AD) or, failing that, should be dismissed as useless.

I want a United Nations which is real, not a formality; where the nations of the world come together to discuss and solve the problems of the world. I want that United Nations to have the power to enforce its decisions. So, ultimately, I think the UN should force Iraq to comply ... but the administration's manner in presenting that argument has left it with a choice between becoming an irrelevant decoration that the US wears to disguise its empire, or being discarded as a relic of the past.

I find this ironic in many ways. It's ironic that the US, which did more to create the UN than any other nation, is abandoning it in substance (if not per se in form); it's ironic that the countries which disagree with the US but are allied with it are inadvertantly destroying NATO in the process of trying to prevent a war that the US government is determined to fight (regardless of how you feel about the war, not starting discussions to do things like move radar from Germany to Turkey so that Turkey is defended in the event that Iraq lashes out at it is, if the alliance means anything at all, inexcusable --- and this administration and much of US public opinion will turn against NATO because of it).

It's also sad. The one good thing about the Gulf War was that the international community came together to repel aggression; that the UN, and the notions of collective security it had been intended to embody, were finally being given the chance to ensure a stable, liberal, international order where law, and not power, governed the relations between states. That world is dead. Dead at the hands of the country which had heretofore been its strongest proponent.

This will force *everyone* to reconsider their assumptions about foreign policy.

Scott — So which of our friends are in favor? And when did we lose the friendship of those “questionable” friends? Fourteen months ago it was the French who were saying Nous sommes tous des américains. What did we do to squander that?

Rob — What you said. I've spent a sizeable fraction of my life overseas and hope to spend more of it; I think of myself as living on a planet, not in a city or in a state. I want to live in the world you describe because whether the world as a whole is at peace or at war, whether the world is an international community or a Balkan nightmare of distrustful and occasionally warring 18th-century nation-states has a direct effect on my life.

More and more, though, I've come to realize that a broad, deep section of my fellow citizens just doesn't feel that way and never will for them. It's not true for them. They don't much what happens in the rest of the world so long as things are comfortable here in Fortress America.

And I don't know a damned thing I can do about it.

aphrael writes: "I do not live in that world, and the US deciding that it will unilaterally attack Iraq under the guise of enforcing these resolutions does not bring me any closer to that world."

Well, we're not going to do jack "unilaterally". That's a red herring.

But I do think this is an interesting question: If only a few members of a group enforce the laws put forth by the entire group, how is that invalidating the group or the laws it put forth?

'Unilaterally' was a bad choice of words; i'm using it to mean 'in an action not endorsed by the United Nations', which is imprecise if not flat-out wrong. My (feeble) excuse is that this has become common terminology among people opposed to the debate (and, perhaps, has degenerated into jargon).

I would say that the US choosing on its own to enforce a rule that the UN isn't enforcing is similar to you choosing to enforce the law when the local police do not. In particular, if you're enforcing the law (and the police aren't), what happens when you decide to do something which is against the law? Can the police at that point stop you from doing so, or will it turn out that they've abdicated their power?

That's ridiculous in the case of you the individual. But imagine instead that you're a member of the Committee for Justice Now!, and that Committee has decided to enforce the law in some town where the police aren't doing so. What you've got, then, is vigilante justice. The Committee for Justice Now! decides that someone has violated the law, enforces that law on its own, and (in essence) lynches the person.

It seems to me that if the US acts without UN sanction, it is in the position of the Committee for Justice Now!, in that scenario.

As for how that invalidates the group: if the Committee for Justice Now! consists primarily of the wealthiest and most powerful member of the community, will the police ever act against the interests of the Committee? And if the police won't, if the police can't act independantly but the Committee can, how do the police matter at all?

Oops. This is what I get for multi-tasking: 'opposed to the debate', above, should have been 'opposed to the war'. *grin*

Well, the analogy is flawed because in the international community there is not external body to enforce the laws passed by the U.N. There is no U.N. police force capable of backing up its laws...that function is up to the member states.

We're more like a village of people with no police force. We've gotten together as a group and decided that we're not going to stand for the actions of the son of a bitch across town who's developing illegal weapons, treating is family like shit, and sticking him thumb in our collective eye.

The U.N. is the only semblance of international law that we've got. Does its word mean anything, or is it a hollow, masturbatory exercise?

Derek, which do you think undermines the UN more: the Security Council being wishy-washy about enforcing its resolutions, or a member state taking the law into its own hands and telling the Security Council to go to hell? Particularly when that member state has itself been very wishy-washy in support of the UN in the past, and its actions can very easily be construed — correctly or not — as using the UN as a fig leaf for doing what it wants to do anyway?

Personally, I think the law analogy is flawed; UN isn't really a lawmaking body, it's an institution providing a framework to allow its members to come to consensus. A resolution isn't a law, it's a statement of the consensus opinion reached at a certain time, which opinion may change, and does.

To use your village analogy, “we” haven't agreed what we're going to do about the town asshole yet. We haven't even agreed whether he's worth doing something about. The town bully, though, says we need to do something RIGHT F—ING NOW and if we don't, then, screw it, he (and maybe his kid sidekick) are just gonna go over and burn the guy's house down.

This is not how a functional community operates.

David writes: "Personally, I think the law analogy is flawed; UN isn't really a lawmaking body, it's an institution providing a framework to allow its members to come to consensus."

Right, and there was unanimous consensus (the *17th* such resolution) saying that this was Iraq's final chance to comply, and that if they didn't there would be serious consequences.

"A resolution isn't a law, it's a statement of the consensus opinion reached at a certain time, which opinion may change, and does."

The U.N. passed 1441 last November. You're saying that the consensus has changed in the last four months?

The analogy above is getting strained, so I won't continue it, but you allude to the idea that Bush is rushing into war (with the "Right F--king Now" comment). Basically, Iraq hasn't complied since the end of the Gulf War. A dozen years have passed, and 17 resolutions have been issued (all saying the same thing...that Iraq must comply. Has the consensus over the past 12 years changed?). If this is a rush to war, what is a patient wait? 50 years?

There is a consensus that Iraq should not have weapons of mass destruction. There is not a consensus that Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction. There is certainly not a consensus that the US ought to invade Iraq. You're damned right the consensus on that has changed in the last twelve years, or the French ambassador wouldn't have gotten the applause he did yesterday at the UN. The world has changed. (I mean, when Resolution 687 was passed the Soviet Union still had a seat on the Security Council, for God's sake.)

Look, it's stupid for us to be having this argument. Plenty of other people already are, and I'll be extraordinarily surprised if either of us really manages to say anything original. You feel that invading Iraq will make the world a safer place, I feel that it'll make the world a more dangerous one, and no nit either of us can pick is actually going to change the other one's mind. Let's give it a rest.

Well, personally I almost never think it's pointless to discuss substantive issues that affect us all. And there are very few originalities in any domain or discussion.

But if you feel like this discussion is simply a tired retread and you'd rather not discuss it in this forum, fair enough.

David, England and Australia are in favor, as is Spain, Italy, and pretty much all of Eastern Europe.

France hasn't been the a good friend for some decades now. France is a fair weather friend at best. (Leaving NATO to go their own way in the 80s and then coming back when they failed.) They aren't enemies, mind. France (and Germany, and Belgium) are the guy at work you don't necessarily like (but don't hate) but you usually get along well enough to get the job done and you might go out for a drink after work, but you'd never think of calling them up on the weekend.

The UN is a joke. The problem is the UN assumes all countries are morally equivalent. That would work if those country's felt likewise, but who here thinks Saudi Arabia is on par with the U.S.? Because of that faulty assumption, you end up with Libya heading the committee on human rights and Iraq heading the committee on disarmament.

Another blogger (forgot who) suggested that a league of democratic nations take its place.

Scott — I know the governments of those countries have said they'll chip in, but if you believe in democracy you might want to check the poll numbers before taking that as an indicator of broad-based support.

That link is to a ZIP file full of PDFs, so I'll call out some highlights:

• Not in favor of military action against Iraq under any circumstances:
  • France: 60%
  • Germany: 50%
  • Spain: 74%
  • UK: 41%
  • Estonia: 64%
  • Russia: 59%
  • Australia: 27%
  • New Zealand: 32%
  • Canada: 36%
  • Hong Kong: 47%
  • India: 59%
• In favor of military action against Iraq if sanctioned by the UN:
  • France: 27%
  • Germany: 39%
  • Spain: 13%
  • UK: 39%
  • Estonia: 20%
  • Russia: 23%
  • Australia: 56%
  • New Zealand: 52%
  • Canada: 46%
  • Hong Kong: 41%
  • India: 21%

As to whether the US (and allies) should go to war without UN approval, the numbers drop into single digits pretty much across the board.

I thought there wasn't any point in talking about this...

Geez, I go out of town for the weekend and find a huge thread that I'm not a part of!

Although I, personally, am not in favor of invading Iraq at this time, my bigger beef is with the way that the Administration is going about it. Every report I've seen gives me a flavor of trying to bully the world into doing what "we" want. ("What's wrong? You chicken? Bawk, bawk ba-bawk!")

If the Admin truly believes that we must use overwhelming force to disarm Saddam/Iraq, then no, we should not just sit by because others disagree with us. To quote the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, "A true leader does not FOLLOW consensus; a true leader MOLDS consensus."

Note the use of the word "mold". We're not being politic, we're being abusive. In some ways, we're making it *more* difficult for the Security Council to back us, because the issue has been allowed to become so polarized that agreeing with US policy can be easily seen as "caving in" to pressure, and the latter *will* destroy any credibility the UN may still hold.

I believe that it was Lao Tzu who said that, "When a great leader leads, the results appear inevitable."

A whole bunch of people say that Bush is "demonstrating genuine leadership" (the link is a Google on that phrase). I reserve the right to have my own opinion on the matter.