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STEPHEN SCHLESINGER: Hyde-jacking the United Nations (MaximsNews.com, U.N.)

UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@ U.N./ - 23 June 2005 -- Last week the House of Representatives passed the so-called “Henry J. Hyde United Nations Reform Act of 2005” (named after its sponsor) which ostensibly sets out to “modernize” the sixty year old global institution. 

However, the bill requires the US to withhold up to one-half of its dues to the UN unless some 32 of 46 “reform” conditions outlined in the legislation are met by the fall of 2007. 

So the real intent of this bill seems to be to subjugate the UN to Congressional oversight. 

The Bush Administration has denounced the proposal as “impermissibly” infringing on presidential authority over international affairs. 

Yet one wonders why President Bush should be surprised that Republicans in Congress wish to corral the UN on their own. They are only taking their lead from the White House.

Almost from his first day in office, George Bush made it clear he intended to repudiate the multilateralism of the Clinton years and steer the US in an unilateralist direction. 

As part of this scenario, he repudiated global treaties and downgraded the UN as an important part of US foreign policy. 

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, when the UN gave its full backing to the US for its anti-terrorist efforts, including its invasion of Afghanistan, it appeared the US might reverse course and embrace the organization’s mission. 

But soon after, America invaded Iraq without UN support. Bush then denounced the UN for risking “irrelevance” like the League of Nations by failing to back him.

Soon thereafter Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in response, called the US attack on Iraq  “illegal” under the UN Charter.

Earlier this year, President Bush nominated a notorious UN-baiter, John Bolton, to be the next American envoy to the United Nations. 

Given his selection in his first term of two moderate Republicans as his ambassadors to the UN  in his first term – John Negroponte and former Senator John Danforth – it appears that Bush is now paying-back Annan for his (and the UN’s) opposition to his Iraqi incursion. 

This is a well-known feature of Bush’s take-no-prisoners, “in-your-face” political strategy. But, in his curious  gamesmanship over the UN, Bush also continues to work with the UN over Iraq, arranging for the organization to supervise Iraqi elections and help Iraqis write a new constitution.

Given Bush’s peculiar back and forth track-record toward the UN, it may actually make a perverse sort of sense for Republicans in Congress to strike out on their own against the UN. In any case, the UN’s own mini-scandals in the oil-for-food program as well as reported sexual assaults by UN soldiers in the Congo also helped fuel Congressional outrage. 

Still, in advancing their legislation, the conservatives in Congress appear to have deliberately overlooked the fact that the UN itself is, right now, involved in the greatest reform effort the organization has ever undertaken. 

Secretary-General Annan last March delivered a set of recommendations to the General Assembly entitled “In Larger Freedom” that asked for stark management changes, a restructuring of the Security Council, reforms in the human rights commission, a new definition of terrorism, various new forms of humanitarian protection, controls over nuclear materials, and increased economic aid to poor lands.

Oddly enough, many of the Hyde reforms track those proposed by Annan. 

But the Hyde bill, in its bludgeon-like, Indian-giver, fashion looks more like a tawdry sham. 

Its hammer-like approach is guaranteed to alienate the other nations at the UN rather than encourage them to adopt reforms. 

It is a play to the Republican right-wing. 

And it does take power from the White House. 

Most significantly, it demands that, until its reforms are accepted by the UN, the US is going to have to lower its contributions to the UN peacekeeping forces, as well as help prevent any new peacekeeping operations.

This raises a question for Congressman Hyde. 

Cutting off peacekeeping funds and possibly ending the seventeen current UN peacekeeping missions around the globe may, indeed, rivet the world’s attention about UN reforms, but just whom does the Representative propose to maintain the peace in Cyprus, the Congo, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and all the other hot-spots around the globe where the UN forces are encamped and preventing conflict – more US troops financed by US taxpayers? 

Or, on the contrary, does he simply think we should allow these brushfires to ignite without supervision into large-scale conflagrations? 

Either route, I suggest, are not likely to be great winners back home. 

Hopefully the Senate is going to put the death-knell to this singularly imprudent legislation.

Labels: United Nations, U.N., 

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