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Up From Totalitarianism
April 19, 2013 | 20 comments
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Obama and Israel Reconfigured
April 1, 2013 | 34 comments
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Reflections on Timbuktu
January 30, 2013 | 7 comments
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The Blackmailer’s Paradox
January 16, 2013 | 85 comments
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Right of Revolution?
December 20, 2012 | 84 comments
Another Perspective
The Magic Button Test
Turkey’s behavior confirms again that UN involvement always makes things worse, as Amb. Jeane Kirkpatrick would have put it.
On January 26, 1982, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, delivered an address before the Foreign Policy Association in New York called “Making Things Worse.” I was her speechwriter at the time, and I prepared a draft for her which, I’m pleased to say, she did not use; instead, she drafted a far better speech of her own. Ambassador Kirkpatrick did, however, cite a book called A Dangerous Place: The United Nations as a Weapon in World Politics, written by two political scientists, Abraham Yeselson and Anthony Gaglione, that I brought to her attention (as a political scientist herself, I knew she’d go for it), and whose theme — that the UN, designed to make things better, was actually making things worse — became the theme of her remarks to the Foreign Policy Association. Ambassador Kirkpatrick’s speech made quite a stir at the time, and after 28 years, I still believe it is the most trenchant critique of the UN ever made by a senior American official. Here is the critical part of her address:
The UN process breeds polarization which, as Yeselson and Gaglione observed in their stimulating study of the United Nations (which, like [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan’s book, also was titled A Dangerous Place), “by constantly forcing states to choose up sides, progressively destroys neutral havens.” Obviously, extending and polarizing conflict is the very opposite of resolving it. For as the conflict is extended, polarized and publicized, flexibility is diminished, and the possibilities of conflict resolution decrease as heat and light increase.
This process of conflict extension, exacerbation, polarization, has progressed so far that Yeselson and Gaglione pointed out: “Use of the U.N. is a barometer of the hostility existing between nations. Nations interested in reaching agreement almost always ignore or avoid the U.N…Bringing an issue to the U.N. is likely to be regarded as a hostile act.” Naturally, the United Nations’ reputation for partisanship and conflict exacerbation severely limits its utility for conflict resolution.
It is fortunate that Ambassador Kirkpatrick despised the State Department, and refused to submit her major speeches for clearance (as a Reagan favorite, she could get away with this). Otherwise, Foggy Bottom would never have allowed a major American official to publicly state that far from resolving conflicts, the United Nations exacerbates them.
The recent attempt by Turkey and its new Arab friends to use the UN Security Council as a means of criminalizing and de-legitimizing Israel is yet another in a depressingly long series of events demonstrating the validity of Kirkpatrick’s thesis. Had Turkey wanted to genuinely defuse the crisis with Israel, it could easily have done so through quiet diplomatic channels; but because Turkey’s leaders, intent on playing a major new role in the Middle East as standard-banners of Sunni Islam, are not interested in conflict resolution, but rather in conflict extension, exacerbation, and polarization (or, in plain English, in leading a lynch mob), they naturally turned to the UN to advance their purposes.
During her tenure at the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick demonstrated how an American Ambassador should conduct herself. Her speeches to the Security Council invariably injected an element of moral clarity into an otherwise degraded debate. But I don’t think she ever addressed the fundamental problem her analysis raised: How can the United States return the UN to its original, conflict-resolving purposes.
For my part, I used to present my colleagues with what I called “The Magic Button Test.” Imagine there was a Magic Button, and all you had to do was press it, and the entire UN apparatus would simply vanish into thin air — would you go ahead and press it?
To my surprise and dismay, some of my colleagues refused to press the Magic Button. They agreed that the UN’s major institutions — the Security Council and General Assembly — are a menace to civilization, but they felt obliged to support the UN’s humanitarian agencies. I argued that the world’s civilized states, along with non-governmental organizations, would quickly find substitutes for UNICEF, the World Health Organization, etc., so that the truly needy would not suffer as a result of the UN’s demise.
To my intense regret, I never had the opportunity to pose the Magic Button Test to Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Today, however, I think it is more important than ever that we press the Magic Button — that is, withdraw from the UN and all its works. The world is a very dangerous place. The last thing it needs is an institution like the United Nations, which mainly serves to make it more dangerous.
Kenny| 6.7.10 @ 6:42AM
"Today, however, I think it is more important than ever that we press the Magic Button -- that is, withdraw from the UN and all its works."
Amen, Brother!
Alan Brooks| 6.7.10 @ 12:21PM
"Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's ..."
Exactly, she didn't work for someone named Bush.
Gr0w1er| 6.7.10 @ 12:40PM
Push the button!! NOW!!!
John G.| 6.7.10 @ 8:27AM
Nowadays, State is too busy pressing the "Reset" button.
DaveS| 6.7.10 @ 7:24PM
...except when poorly translated to Russian, the button says something else entirely.
Yosemeti Sam| 6.7.10 @ 8:32AM
Ha, ha - declare eminent domain and raze that putrid
building.
For an amusement park!
Gr0w1er| 6.7.10 @ 12:41PM
Nah- a garbage dump.
Vandervecken| 6.7.10 @ 5:27PM
Yes--and let the bastard Islamists trying to defile Ground Zero with a Mosque, of all things, build it THERE.
Louis Jenkins| 6.7.10 @ 8:41AM
Amen Sam. Bulldoze the whole building into the sea and put up some condos.
Jim O'Brien| 6.7.10 @ 8:42AM
The U.S. should cut all funding for the UN, leave it, condemn the building in NYC, and suggest that the whole farce be moved to Pyongyang, North Korea.
Maxwell| 6.7.10 @ 9:45AM
Jim, I have said the same for many years however I have added just one more point, the New York Times go with them to Pyongyang.
John Navratil| 6.7.10 @ 9:23AM
Ah, the humanity! Were would the agents of the world's kleptocrats go? Surely the pain suffered by those relegated back to their various Eden's in those wonderful People's Democracies would soften the hardest AmSpec readers heart. Have you now shame ;)
Stan Redmond| 6.7.10 @ 10:43AM
Move the UN HQ to Gaza.
Helen Donnelly| 6.7.10 @ 2:36PM
Best idea I've heard....
Seek| 6.7.10 @ 11:55AM
A Devil's Advocate question: What about the good work the UN has done over the years in areas such as childhood nutrition, public health, human rights, conflict resolution and anti-poverty programs? I don't like the UN being used as a Third World forum for anti-Americanism, but at least a few worthy initiatives have come out of the institution, no?
JmsA| 6.7.10 @ 3:47PM
Seek,
Don't forget the (Iraq/Saddam Hussein) Oil-for-Food Programme introduced by Bill Clinton and implemented by the U.N.
Vandervecken| 6.7.10 @ 5:31PM
JmsA--I assume you're writing that tongue-in-cheek, as oil-for-blood was one of the largest criminal enterprises and money-laundering schemes in human history.
Seek--the small good that the UN does isn't a pimple on the ginormous evil it does. The UN is all bathwater, and no baby (maybe some afterbirth). And as Mr. Shattan has written, nations of good will could easily--and probably more efficiently and certainly with less pedophilia--pick up the slack.
GreyLion| 6.7.10 @ 12:12PM
Seek,
NO! - the UN has bungled almost everything it has touched. Darfur, Bosnia, Somalia, Bird flu, sanctions of Iran and North Korea, just to name a few. Its purpose is to redistritbute wealth and that, sadly, it does very well.
Gr0w1er| 6.7.10 @ 12:55PM
So true, GreyLion. Don't forget how masterful the UN has handled the AIDS epidemic in Africa. A shining example of benevolent bureaucracy! On the political side, who can forget Sierra Leone? Another abortion. That said, the UN is one pregnancy the world really needs to abort.
Andy_Krow| 6.7.10 @ 1:13PM
I made a business trip to Ethiopia recently. One day, while waiting for my ride at the hotel I was staying at, a white SUV with "UN" blazed all over it pulled up. A bunch of nattily dressed individuals quickly boarded and the vehicle sped off. As it passed me, I noticed a sticker in the window that depicted what looked like an M-14 with a red slash through it. Obvioulsy, the implication was that the UN wanted to get rid of guns.
Shortly thereafter, my ride appeared and we took off towards the office downtown. During the 15 minute trip, we passed no less than a dozen rag-tag, undernourished "soldiers" with AK-47's positioned at various places.
The UN musta been thinking about somebody else's guns, I guess...
Bram| 6.7.10 @ 2:34PM
Punch out Maverick!
Vito Corleone| 6.7.10 @ 11:58PM
How did things ever get so far? I don't know. It was all so unfortunate, so unnecessary.
seo | 6.9.10 @ 8:24AM
How did things ever get so far? I don't know. It was all so unfortunate, so unnecessary.
Flit Andersen| 6.9.10 @ 9:03PM
Women got access to the Franchise.
Big mistake.
Flit Andersen| 6.9.10 @ 9:02PM
Ahh, Jeane! The days when women had some spine & brains. Before the days of third-rate entertainers passing as intellectuals.
But the great lady's "daughters" are back on the rise. Go Sarah! Rep. Michele Bachmann! Gov. Jan Brewer!
Women like THESE almost make me give my opposition to women voting a second thought.
Almost.....
Flit Andersen| 6.10.10 @ 12:23AM
One final thought re: the UN. I would - TOMORROW - send in a detachment of Marines to round everybody up. Take them to a POE - a ship. A small, no-frills ship. Load them up and send it to one of those "Shitcanistan" countries where they can get the hell off and do as they please. Then I would take the building at Turtle Bay and turn it into a veterans hospital/rehab center and provide dorms for homeless combat vets.
That's what I would do.
jfdi| 7.1.10 @ 5:02AM
beijing massage
Tony Shemmans | 6.14.11 @ 10:56AM
I wonder if there is a Magic Button that is being created right now, between the IMF, the UN and perhaps NATO....
It is definately one to watch