Kristof, the UN, Darfur, and Iraq

The continuing genocide in Darfur underscores how ineffective the "international community" in general--and the United Nations in particular--are when it comes to putting an end to genocide. Pick your spot -- Darfur, Rwanda, Kosovo, Burma, or any other nation on the planet -- and ask yourself what the UN has done to put an end to massive violations of human rights.

The answer is virtually nothing.

Because nations like Russia and China serve on the U.N. Security Council [with 'veto authority'], there are intrinsic, severely confining limits to the good we can hope to achieve (both nations have crippled efforts to pressure the Bashir regime and the government in Khartoum). Yet the argument we hear ad nauseam is that during the last eight years the United States has relied too little on the UN and has been too "unilateralist" in its foreign policy.

But the reality is that the best way to advance justice may be for the United States to rely less on the UN and more on narrower "coalitions of the willing"...

[I.e., we need replace the UN with the LLD: League of Leading {i.e., capable} Democracies. Recommended > ]

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