By Judith Miller
New York Times
March 14, 1999
In a world with conflicts raging from Angola to Kosovo, the U.N.
Security Council, the heart of the world body, finds itself increasingly marginalized.
The causes, diplomats say, are many, but among the most important is America's growing impatience
with the council's often laborious decision-making process and Washington's increasing resort to
regional groups to stop or prevent increasingly local conflicts.
A result, many agree, has been the U.N.'s growing irrelevance to many major conflicts. "Where is the Security Council on Kosovo?" said Herbert S. Okun, a former American ambassador and an adviser to the United Nations on international drug issues. "Or Ethiopia? Or even Iraq?"
Nabil A. Elaraby, who is leaving his post as Egypt's representative and who has served on the Security Council, called the council's record in the last five years "nothing to be proud of" and "lamentable" of late. "The Security Council is doing more and more things," said David Malone, a former Canadian diplomat at the United Nations and president of the International Peace Academy, a research organization that studies it. "But the things it is doing seem to matter less and less."
In Kosovo, the Security Council has been sidelined as NATO has essentially taken over management of the conflict and efforts to find a solution. Any peacekeeping operation there would be run by NATO, as well as any decision to use force. Although some European nations want the Security Council to have a say, it has been cut out of any such role, primarily by the United States.
In Iraq, the U.N. regime intended to monitor Iraq's weapons program has been stymied by Baghdad's refusal to cooperate. With Russia, France and China increasingly hostile to economic sanctions against Baghdad or the use of force, the United States and Britain have been pursuing policies independent of the council, conducting nearly daily bombing raids over Iraq. Meanwhile, three recently formed U.N. panels are trying to find a solution to the impasse.
In other places as well, U.N. efforts have been thwarted, rebuffed or ignored. The number of U.N. peacekeepers in the field has dropped from 80,000 a decade ago to 17,000 today. Last month, China pulled the plug on a peacekeeping force for Macedonia, which has helped keep chaos in the Balkans from spreading since 1993.
Security Council members, faced with opposition from Angola to a U. N. presence, recently voted to end their peacekeeping mission there. And on the Horn of Africa, the Security Council has proved powerless to persuade Ethiopia and Eritrea to settle their border dispute peacefully, leaving mediation largely to the regional Organization of African Unity.
Clinton administration officials and others have in recent months blamed Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has been at odds with the administration over its policy toward Iraq, for the malaise. To help ease tensions, Annan traveled to Washington in February to smooth relations and try to persuade Congress to pay more than a billion dollars in past dues. The trip was a personal success for Annan, diplomats agreed. But it failed to address what many call the underlying causes of the deep divisions that have disabled the Security Council.
Those divisions and the resulting paralysis, they say, reflect underlying political shifts that may be difficult for any secretary-general, or the United Nations, to address. Among them, analysts say, is Russia's decline as a world power and its determination to prove that it is a still a force to be reckoned with by vetoing, or threatening to veto, many American-backed proposals in the Security Council.
But Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Annan's predecessor who was barred from a second term by Clinton administration opposition, blames the U.S. for sidelining the Security Council on key issues. In a rare interview since his departure, Boutros-Ghali said the problem was that growing opposition to American policy within the Security Council has more and more often divided its five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China.
"The marginalization began in 1993 with the Somalia intervention and the subsequent change of majority in Congress," Boutros-Ghali said, referring to the killing of American soldiers in the failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia and the later victory of what he called Republican "isolationists" in the House and Senate. It increased, he said, with "America's discovery of its role as the sole remaining superpower." "Weaker states depend heavily on diplomacy," Boutros-Ghali said. "When you're powerful, you don't need it."
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's representative to the United Nations, said that the Security Council's paralysis on key issues reflected what he called a "change of culture" since the end of the Cold War. Ethnic conflicts within states are now at least as common as interstate disputes, he said, but harder for the Security Council to address. "Political identity is shrinking when it should be expanding," he said, and "nations increasingly pursue their own, rather than the collective, interest." Sir Jeremy, whose country has most often and most staunchly supported Washington, refused to blame any one state for the council's malaise. But, he continued, it was "shortsighted" of the administration to ignore or sidestep the Security Council, even if it does take time and effort to secure a consensus there.
Egypt's representative, Nabil Elaraby, echoing a growing resentment of what several diplomats called American "bullying" at the United Nations, said, "Of the five permanent members, there is increasingly only one." Administration officials rejected such complaints, noting, for example, that the Security Council had by most standard legal interpretations authorized the bombing and use of force against Iraq.
Moreover, Washington, one official added, had spent "hours and hours" consulting with Russian officials, trying to head off confrontations where possible and secure at least implicit acceptance of American policy in conflicts ranging from Iraq to Kosovo. "We go out of our way to consult with Russia," a senior administration official said. "But on some key issues, as the United Nations Charter clearly allows, we must protect our national interests." UNITED NATIONS: national interests."
But increasingly, one diplomat said on the condition of anonymity, Washington uses the council "selectively," to find multilateral cover for its policies, relying on regional organizations instead to legitimize force when a Russian or Chinese veto seems likely.
In a recent interview, Annan said that it was "natural" for NATO to handle the Kosovo crisis, since the "United Nations Charter urges regional organizations" to deal with such conflicts. "It's not marginalizing the United Nations," Annan said. Yet, he said, he hoped the United States would consult with the Security Council if efforts to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis fail and military force is to be used. Annan disagrees with American policy on Iraq, which he says "goes far beyond Security Council resolutions" by which he is bound.
Leslie Gelb, president of the council on Foreign Relations and a former columnist for theNew York Times, said that the administration, unable to persuade fellow council members of the wisdom of its policy towards Iraq, which calls for removing Saddam Hussein whether or not he accepts weapons inspectors back into the country, has made Annan and its United Nations "convenient whipping boys" for "confused policy"
"The problem is not Kofi Annan, the most pro-Western and pro-American secretary-general Washington has had, or is likely to have," Gelb said. "And it's not an unyielding Security Council. Sure, on some issues, Russia and China won't budge. But usually when the United States has a clear, convincing policy, it gets its way on the council. Maybe our policy is neither anymore."
Several diplomats expressed confidence that the Security Council would eventually return to center stage, if only because there was no real alternative to the legitimation its decisions provide. Annan, for one, argued that the limitations of relying on regional groups instead to sanction the use of force were already becoming apparent. "I don't see, say, NATO being used to solve security problems outside Europe," Annan said, referring to the cool reception NATO members gave an American proposal to involve it in anti-drug and anti-terrorism work. "Ultimately, I'm sure everyone will decide it is wiser to press for and work within a harmonious council."
