Global Policy Forum

By Neil McFarquhar

Japan easily drubbed Iran in the election on Friday for a two-year seat on the Security Council, while the recent financial meltdown in Iceland appeared to have contributed to its loss against Austria and Turkey in the heavily fought contest for two seats reserved for a group of mostly European countries. Some Council members portrayed the lopsided vote against Iran, with Japan garnering 158 votes to Iran's 32, as an international referendum critical of the country's confrontational stance over its nuclear program. "Its comprehensive defeat — a thrashing of Iran — is a very important signal of the whole membership's concern about Iran's actions," said Sir John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, a position echoed by the United States.

Ambassador Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy permanent representative for the United States, said, "Hopefully they will understand that this means that there is no support from the international community for that type of behavior." Even the ambassador from South Africa, which is about to give up its two-year seat and has had numerous face-offs with the Western permanent members, thought that worries over Iran's nuclear program, which have led to three rounds of United Nations sanctions, played a role. "I think it is quite a low number," said Dumisani S. Kumalo, the South African ambassador, referring to the number of votes Iran received. "It may not have helped that it is also on the agenda of the Security Council. I suppose some people may have had difficulty with that."

Some countries have worried that Iran could behave as Rwanda did in the early 1990s, when it used its seat to hinder resolutions aimed at curbing violence there.The Iranian Mission to the United Nations issued a statement saying that it considered the votes that it received an endorsement for its call to broaden the way the Council is selected. It did not mention the nuclear standoff directly but blamed the "false propaganda campaign by certain major powers" as contributing to its defeat. Iran says its atomic work has been aimed solely at producing electrical power, but Western countries fear that Iran's goal is to produce weapons. Iran ran a low-key campaign, arguing that it deserved the spot because it had not been on the Council since 1956, while this will be Japan's 10th time, the last one ending in 2006. Iran issued a small brochure with a bar graph pointing out that difference, along with pictures of Iranian industrial complexes and famous historic sites in the country. It also included a classical Iranian poem that ended, "If thou feel not for the other's misery, a human being is no name for thee."

In any case, Japan is considered a formidable rival, given its huge foreign aid program and the fact that it is the second-largest contributor to the United Nations budget behind the United States. It gives $304 million to the organization each year, beyond financing nearly 17 percent of the almost $7 billion in annual costs for peacekeeping, according to the Japanese Mission."The reality is that nobody expected Iran to prevail against Japan even if there was no nuclear problem," said Colin Keating, a former New Zealand ambassador and now the head of Security Council Report, a nonprofit organization that tracks the body. He suggested that 32 votes meant that Iran does have a few committed friends.

The 10 nonpermanent seats out of 15 total on the Security Council drew heated competition because the Council is the only body with real power in the United Nations. The vote for the seats is one of the few truly electric events on the General Assembly calendar. All 192 member states showed up, a rarity. Each member's vote carries the same weight, and the outcome is often viewed as a kind of popularity contest for a member's standing in the world. Competing nations often drop out rather than live with the embarrassment of receiving few votes. Iceland, too, was facing two formidable opponents in Austria and Turkey. More than 100 nations have diplomatic outposts in Vienna because of its role as a regional headquarters for the United Nations, and Austria has been campaigning for the seat for years. Turkey last held a seat in 1961 and has been seen by other members as working hard to establish peace in a difficult region — it has been the liaison between Israel and Syria, for example.

Many ambassadors said Iceland's effort was dented by the widespread publicity given to its bank failures, especially since there is an informal understanding that it helps for countries that want a seat to be able to contribute generously to aid programs. Iceland's ambassador, Hjalmar W. Hannesson, said he had expected a sympathy vote, saying that 141 countries had promised to vote for his nation. Ultimately, Turkey got 151 votes, Austria 133 and Iceland 87. (A two-thirds majority, or 128 seats, was needed to win.) Regional groups often select their candidates beforehand, so Mexico was elected without opposition for the Latin America seat, while Uganda took the Africa slot. In addition to South Africa, the countries that will leave the Council on Jan. 1 are Belgium, Indonesia, Italy and Panama.