“I strongly believe that the administration should advocate for the continuation of U.N. weapons inspections for another three to six weeks, the institution of a series of benchmarks — or specific demands for Iraq to meet — and a second U.N. Security Council Resolution that will assess Iraq’s compliance with these concrete demands for
disarmament established by international consensus, not unilaterally.”

— Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., March 12, 2003.

So it has come to this: The countries and people not serious about disarming Saddam Hussein now desire a second resolution to enforce U.N. Resolution 1441, which was written to enforce U.N. Resolution 687, which recalled and reaffirmed U.N. resolutions 660, 661, 662 and so on. The United Nations’ charade of resolutions is becoming more and more like a parent telling a child, again and again, to turn off the Nintendo at bedtime.

U.N. Resolution 687, remember, stipulated that Iraq shall “accept destruction” of “all chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities.” What other “benchmarks” do Wexler, France and other gullible nations need besides the pictures of Iraqis rolling out Al-Samoud missiles Hussein said they did not have?

If a second resolution is needed to enforce 1441, then 1441 has effectively meant nothing. The events of the past six months will not have been wasted since they have been useful in elucidating new roles for the United Nations in the world.

It is, more than anything else, a place for national psychotherapy. A place where Angola sits next to England and says to itself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and, doggone it, people like me.” The design of the United Nations, (Articles of Confederation meets Keystone Cops), means those countries with populations less than Connecticut’s can exercise undeserved power when votes are needed for diplomatic cosmetics.

But some countries not lacking in self-esteem enjoy the delights of the United Nations in their own way. France sees the United Nations as a place where it can matter, and, more important, an instrument through which it can be the harness on American power.

France is a country with a permissive attitude toward Hussein’s regime and is therefore a country not suited to fighting him. Financial intermingling aside, the French government knows Saddam’s missiles are not likely to be pointed at Paris.

People who understand this should not be worried that there is little support of war to disarm Saddam.

In England, where upward of 45 percent of the public opposes any invasion of Iraq, Clare Short, a minister, is considering quitting because the British will engage in war without “U.N. authority.” Short’s view of the United Nations is pervasive in Europe, where countries pool power in hopes of multiplying it. If Short wants to live in a country that must ask permission from other nations to make war, she should move to France.

And if the United Nations needs another resolution to take its previous resolutions seriously, then it will have proven it is not a body worthy of being taken seriously.

Jon Patterson is a columnist at The Maneater at the University of Missouri.
This column was distributed by U-Wire.