Annan and Bush Agree

Fourth Quarter 2002

Editor's Watch

by James W. Skillen

United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and U.S. President, George W. Bush, both addressed the U.N. on September 12 and together they hit the nail on the head. Let's hope they keep hammering together in the months ahead.

Kofi Annan stressed the importance of international law and institutions that the United States and other countries have carefully built up over centuries and especially since the end of World War II. No country has the right, unilaterally, to dismantle another country's governing system. If one country poses a threat to peace and stability in its region or the world, then the U.N. Security Council ought to face the challenge and authorize multilateral action. In the case of Iraq, the U.S. should not act alone. If the U.S. ignores these long-established principles, it may cause greater disorder in the world.

At the same time, however, as the secretary general said, the U.N. must truly exercise its responsibilities. Given past U.N. resolutions against Iraq, "If Iraq's defiance continues, the Security Council must face its responsibilities," said Mr. Annan. In other words, if the nations of the world insist on multilateral decisions through the U.N. but do not act with determination against the very governments that are breaking all the international rules, then the U.N. must sanction the law breakers or it will make itself a laughing stock and prove that it is little more than hot air.

President Bush essentially agreed with Mr. Annan. Mr. Bush went to the U.N. to ask it to act. He acknowledged the legitimacy of international law and institutions and asked the U.N. to fulfill its responsibility so that the U.S. can be a full and supportive participant in enforcing international justice. Yet President Bush emphasized the responsibilities which belong to individual states that make tip the U.N., responsibilities that cannot be relinquished if the U.N. fails to fulfill its responsibility.

"The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace," said Mr. Bush.

"Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance.

"All the world now faces a test and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"

These are proper and urgent questions. If the U.N. fails to exercise its responsibility, it proves its own irrelevance. If the U.N. Security Council does not act to back up its past resolutions and enforce its sanctions against member state Iraq, then the United States and other nations will have to follow other routes to dealing with Iraq. This does not mean that the U.S. would automatically be justified in going to war against Saddam Hussein. There are obligations that bind the U.S. and other states in their conduct of foreign affairs regardless of whether the U.N. exists.

However, on September 12, the U.S. and the U.N. were in agreement: international law should be upheld and enforced multilaterally against U.N. member states who defy that law and the U.N. 's resolutions. But if U.N. authorities fail to exercise their responsibilities, then the U.S. and other nations may have to act alone or by means of a different kind of multilateral cooperation. The Bush administration should do everything possible to deal with Iraq in ways that help to strengthen rather than undermine international law and institutions.