The Purpose of the United Nations<\/strong><\/p>\n The United Nations charter lists four purposes of the organization (I have paraphrased them for brevity) in Chapter 1, Article 1.\u00a0 Unfortunately, some of these purposes are mutually exclusive:<\/p>\n 2011 Democracy Index - The United Nations (Dark green countries are the most democratic, dark red countries are the most authoritarian)<\/p><\/div>\n The UN Security Council<\/strong><\/p>\n The UN Security Council is where the power lies with regards to conflicts like Libya and Syria and it is arguably the\u00a0most malignant\u00a0cancer infecting the United Nations.\u00a0\u00a0The Security Council\u00a0consists of five permanent members with veto power: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China.\u00a0 The latter two countries are the problem.<\/p>\n How did Russia and China\u00a0find themselves\u00a0on the Security Council?\u00a0 The council members were the countries that won WWII.\u00a0 This meant the Republic of China and the Soviet Union, not<\/em> the People\u2019s Republic of China and Russia.\u00a0 The Republic of China was a democratic country exiled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and the communist victors of the war\u00a0took over the\u00a0seat at the Security Council in 1971.\u00a0 Russia inherited its seat on the Security Council after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.<\/p>\n For the past 65 years Russia and China have been a force of oppression by acting as the primary backers of authoritarian regimes around the world<\/a>.\u00a0 Wherever you find a dictator killing his own people you\u2019ll find him using Russian weapons to do it.\u00a0 I was on the receiving end of Russian bullets, rockets, and mortars while fighting in the Libyan civil war<\/a>. \u00a0China boosts authoritarian state economies with foreign investment (and supplies them with weapons as well<\/a>.)\u00a0 Both Russia and China also protect authoritarian regimes through obstructionism\u00a0on the UN Security Council.\u00a0 In recent years they have successfully shielded Iran<\/a>, North Korea and now, Syria.<\/p>\n A Security Council with a Communist, authoritarian China and a deeply flawed, quasi-democratic Russia whose foreign policy is focused on supporting authoritarian regimes around the world as permanent members with veto power makes the UN charter\u2019s stated purpose #2 (self-determination) and #3 (human rights and freedom) impossible to achieve.<\/p>\n The United Nations\u00a0has become like\u00a0a Superhero who consults the villains before deciding whether to save the city.<\/p>\n Reforming the United Nations<\/strong><\/p>\n If the United Nations wishes to remain relevant in a 21st<\/sup> century world as an organization that can achieve the goals stated in its own charter, it is imperative that one of two things happen.<\/p>\n The second option is clearly preferable.\u00a0 Many arguments can be made to support revoking Russia\u2019s permanent membership on the Security Council, but three of them stand out as most prescient:<\/p>\n The case for revoking the People\u2019s Republic of China\u2019s membership as a permanent member of the Security Council is more complicated.\u00a0 The People\u2019s Republic of China did succeed the Republic of China as a UN member following their conquest of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War, but United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971 put an end to any effective legal argument against China\u2019s status on the Security Council.\u00a0 Furthermore, China is inarguably a world superpower.<\/p>\n However, China has never vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on its own; China so far has only vetoed when Russia does.\u00a0 Removing Russia\u00a0as a permanent member of the Security Council\u00a0would at least encourage China to abstain on some Security Council resolutions it disagrees with rather than be a lone veto.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the chance of Russia losing its permanent member status is about the same as Assad surrendering himself to the International Criminal Court.\u00a0 The only possible reform of the Security Council is expanding the permanent membership to include additional countries (democratic ones), a proposal that has been gaining support in recent years.\u00a0 This would dilute the perceived legitimacy of vetoes\u00a0by Russia or China by having more countries opposed to such vetoes.<\/p>\n The Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n Failing to enact necessary reforms that begin with changes in the Security Council, the United Nations will continue to be largely irrelevant beyond its primary mission of maintaining international peace and security, for which it has a mixed but acceptable record of success.\u00a0 For this purpose the UN should be supported.<\/p>\n After today\u2019s deadline on Syria nobody should remain under the delusion that the United Nations can advance freedom, self-determination, or human rights.\u00a0 If anything, the fact that the primary mission of the UN is stability and peace means that it will often be diametrically opposed to the cause of freedom around the world since in many cases, Syria included, freedom and self-determination can only be achieved through war.\u00a0 Peace and freedom are often mutually exclusive concepts and throughout history it has often been revolutions and civil wars that paved the way to freedom and liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stability means preserving the status quo, and for 1\/3 of the world’s population the status quo\u00a0means living under authoritarianism.<\/p>\n Was Kofi\u00a0Annan\u00a0really \u201cshocked\u201d that Assad\u2019s regime intensified military action as the deadline for a ceasefire drew near?\u00a0 Did Annan really believe that he would achieve anything other than helping Assad by delivering a public relations victory and providing the regime with some diplomatic cover as it escalated violence against the Syrian people?\u00a0 Was he just leading the United Nations through the motions of diplomacy, having the UN act to save face so the diplomats could say they tried something<\/em>?\u00a0 Or is\u00a0Annan suffering from delusions of grandeur so profound that he really believed he could successfully negotiate the beginning of the end of civil war in Syria and pave the way for the voluntary departure of Assad and a transition to democracy?<\/p>\n Did Kofi\u00a0Annan, with all his experience and past success, really believe that the Syrian regime, which tortures children, summarily executes its own citizens, and has mocked the international community for decades, could be an honest and reliable\u00a0partner in negotiations?\u00a0 Could he not predict that the regime would ruthlessly press their advance against the opposition in the days leading up to April 10, taking a deadline as a greenlight for action in advance of it?\u00a0 Is Annan\u00a0(and the UN at large) so incapable of empathizing with both the Assad regime and the Free Syrian Army that\u00a0he believed the two sides would negotiate\u00a0after a\u00a0year of revolution that has claimed 10,000 lives and left both sides in an all-or-nothing, irreversible\u00a0position?<\/p>\n But it really doesn\u2019t matter what Annan and the UN was thinking\u00a0\u2013 the end result is very clear.\u00a0 The Syrian civil war will continue, Assad will remain in power, and nothing short of a military victory by the Free Syrian Army\u00a0is likely to\u00a0remove him and bring peace and security, and most importantly freedom and self-determination, to Syria.<\/p>\n It is also clear that Russia and China will continue to protect Assad<\/a> as permanent members of the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n The UN has only one opportunity left to play a role in Syria – persuade Russia that Assad cannot be reasoned with and must be removed from power.\u00a0 It is possible that Kofi\u00a0Annan\u00a0knew that Syria would fail to honor the April 10\u00a0deadline all along, which would allow him to show Russia that their\u00a0preferred strategy would not work with Assad and that other measures were needed.\u00a0The problem with giving Annan and the UN the benefit of the doubt in this case is that Russia should have been able to exert more influence on Assad if they really felt that their ability to support him was in jeopardy, and because it is highly unlikely that Russia will ever back down on Syria; the Russians believe Assad’s rule can survive and\u00a0they have\u00a0already invested\u00a0considerable political capital supporting him.<\/p>\n The United Nations has its uses.\u00a0 The chance of world war is virtually non-existent, partly due to the existence of the UN.\u00a0 Occasionally positive agreements are reached and the UN has managed to extinguish some conflicts before they spiraled out of control.\u00a0 But the UN should never be expected to fulfill any mission of advancing freedom, human rights, or self-determination \u2013 it can rarely do so\u00a0effectively\u00a0with 1\/3 of its members being authoritarian regimes and 2\/5 of the Security Council willing to protect many of those regimes using their veto power.<\/p>\n The United Nations is focused on peace, stability, and diplomacy.\u00a0 There is no role for any of this in Syria.\u00a0 Any organization that has peace and security as its primary mission is an obstruction to the cause of freedom in Syria, and any actions by\u00a0the UN\u00a0other than military intervention will only serve to strengthen Assad and prolong the suffering of the Syrian people.\u00a0 For every action like today\u2019s expired deadline, the UN will only soil its hands with more Syrian blood by prolonging the war and strengthening Assad\u2019s grip on power.<\/p>\n The time has come for the nations of the free world to act unilaterally in the cause of freedom and human rights in Syria. Let the United Nations be where the democratic countries meet with the 52 authoritarian ones to discuss matters of peace and security.\u00a0But\u00a0have NATO do what it can to eliminate as many of those 52 as possible when the opportunities present themselves, as in Syria now<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the very least, it is time to provide the Free Syrian Army with\u00a0what\u00a0is required to win the war. The Gulf Cooperation Council should send arms, Turkey should help establish a buffer zone in Syria, and the West should continue to provide equipment and intel to hasten the fall of the regime.<\/p>\n When the UN is comprised of democratic countries that actually do represent the principles of freedom and self-determination, then<\/em> we can focus on achieving world peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Failure of the United Nations in Syria Today has proven that the United Nations is powerless to stop the Syrian civil war. Kofi\u00a0Annan\u00a0says he\u2019s \u201cshocked\u201d\u00a0by\u00a0the\u00a0surge in violence and atrocities\u00a0leading up to\u00a0the April 10th deadline for\u00a0Syrian regime\u00a0forces to cease military … Continue reading \n
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