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| quote: | Originally posted by Vesa
However, I believe that the US could have had a Security Council resolution pass on Iraq (or North Korea for that matter) any day it wanted ... as long as it had a clause to the effect that Neocons are booted out of the US Administration. This manifested in the wording of a rivalling proposal from Germany: "UN peacekeepers will be deployed and weapons inspectors tripled to disarm Iraq". |
Well I simply understood this from a realist perception - look at the UN peacekeeping missions history, and tell me if you think they can handle any situation?
UN Peacekeepers, simply would not up the ante, and are unqualified. I did not read this as a suggestion to boot the Neocons.. thats quiet a stretch. As I recall the only government changing that resolution was reffering to was Iraq.
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Ironically, the same "UN indecision" is currently happening again. European Proposals for UN to take over the occupation insist: "UN will take over Iraq occupation, as long as there's a set exit date of troops leaving Iraq". An international force and a set exit date would imply there's no chance the US could put pressure on Syria and Iran. |
I think you also misread this, although you do open the argument that the US wants a precense in Iraq (and I believe it should have one, such as is present in Germany or Japan) in the long run, a date for UN exit is simply dumb, no matter what side of the spectrum you are on. Having an exit strategy is one thing, but a date.. thats ridicilous.
A bit of real politik here: The US wants the UN, I think the UN would be dumb to exit Iraq when it says so, the US will simply then not invite it in as you mentioned. The parties of the UN (namely France, Germany, Russia) will then be the losers regardless if they do not follow the US plan for Iraq. Here let me explain a bit:
The options:
1) The US polices Iraq with its army with no UN aid, Iraq crumbles and becomes rouge again.
2) The UN polices Iraq with its "forces" on its on mandate, leaving prematurely, Iraq crumbles and becomes rouge again.
3) The US and UN co-operate, ensuring that Iraq survives as a nation. Both sides get to share in the spoils.
Oh well thats a bit off though.... if it made sense good, if not so be it...
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Thanks for refreshing my memory about this one  I had actually forgotten FDR's decisive role and the idealistic early goals of UN. I suppose it was NATO which was meant more as a vehicle to maintain status quo than UN, whose goals included replacing the ineffective League Of Nations. |
Well I guess you can say NATO wanted to preserve the status quo (that the Russians don't invade Europe mainly was its purpose, so in thatI see status quo, yes), but it did not aim to replace the League of Nations, it was, and still is soley a military alliance between members.
You might be confusing yourself actually with The Leauge of Nations itself, which was HIGHLY idealisitc. These high ideals led to its realisitc and sudden demise. Afterall, nations such as the Germany and Japan, had the same voice say as Switzerland. And every decision had to be unanimous... how often does that happen between 100+ members of a congress, let alone repersentatives of nations?
| quote: | | However, idealism and moral views may sometimes rule politics even more than money, so UN was probably founded on that basis. |
Ya after WWI, "The Great War" ideals were so high to found the League of Nations. After WWII again they wanted to prevent such great wars, and so a UN was established in an idealisitc spirit, however this time they incorporated some of the lessons learned by the League.
| quote: | | Anyway, I can't help suspecting that the enormously wealthy financial supporters of US parties later made UN to serve their own agenda, which was less idealistic and more about maintaining the US role in the world. |
Actually no, for some reason the West initally never had that much control. Afterall the Security members such as France, and UK were completely against many of the self-determination appeals of the UN charter (as they were colonizers), Russia was extremely pro-self-determinate (but mainly because of their communist notions, and the new revolutions, and new states - the more of which to join the commie empire - were to be created by this), the US was pro-self-determination, basically from pure idealistic reasoning. China didn't give a shit 
But latter on in the UN, during the Cold War you would see that actually it was a fairly balanced vechile for both parties at the secuirty council level (as no one could do anything), but at the general assembly level it was true commie (as the majority of nations were pro-commie dictators as we recall).
Today the UN is vehmently anti-US, it has been so I believe since 1993, right when Clinton took office and Bush's (I) "new world view" came to be realized as an undefined blurb.
| quote: | | Neocons have a long history addressing a variety of causes. I was here referring specifically to their foreign policy visions of the last five years, which can be summed up as an American Empire - certainly a historically decisive change to the world status quo. When Neocons say they want an American Hegemony, and then prove it with concrete actions (defense budget, arms development, bringing down UN before the Iraq War, Bolton's hostility towards North-Korea), I can't help thinking they are the biggest threat to the world status quo since communism. |
See again, you say they want change, I say they want status quo.
Let's examine so perhaps we may agree;
You said, "Neocons say they want an American Hegemony".
I completely agree with this statement. However, I believe America is a Hegemon. It has been a hegemon since the end of WWII. So I say, "Neocons say they want to keep American a hegemon".
I mean to say the US has not been a hegemon is tantamont to blasphamy and severe denial, they are. Neocons simply want to remain it as such. You perhaps might not want the US to remain a hegemon (and from here I sense the opposition to Neocon philosophy), but then you are starting to sound like the Europeans and the rest of the world. They say No to US hegemony, but they do not say what they ARE for.
And from my histroy books, I know the US is better then whatever else the Europeans, Arab-fanatics, or rest of the world have planned for the world, despite the fact that the US is no where near perfect, they are still the best at hegemon.
| quote: | | they seem to have got drunk with success, and crashed head on against reality which resists attempts to change the status quo - as can be currently seen both in Iraq and North Korea. |
See I read this differently, you don't have to agree with me here as this is both simply speculation on our parts but these are my thoughs;
I don't think the Neo-cons are indeed to blame for this "re"action of resistance. I believe this action had already existed and the Neo-cons are the ones indeed reacting.
The world, after the fall of the Cold War failed to realize the dream of George Bush Sr.'s "new world order" where co-operation and union would bind the world together as one world good against evil, using the vechile of the UN as it was but a pipe dream.
When the world woke up from this dream they noticed this; Everything is back as it used to be alla - 18th centuary pre WW... nobody to tell them what to do, and everybody now had an equal chance to gain power and gain dominance. The Europeans with the newly established European movement came to spearhead this campagian. The EU sees itself as a counterweight to the US, it sees itself as being the hegemon. China, now awoken (see they were planning to pull the stunt of rivaling the US for hegemony when all there plans are ready and set, in 40 or so years but the EU beat them to the punch).
The world binded to the cry of the Euros in hopes of winning more power for their own environments and thought this condition would help them CHANGE the status quo so they may gain better influence and position. They seized upon plights of the wrong, the terrorist, the massacraists, so long as they were on the opposite side of the US. Not because they necissarily support those wrong phlights, but because they feel that the US is the cause of all wrong, and that by supporting an enemy of the US you eventually support its destruction.
Here is the problem. The world is trying to undermine the US, it wants more influence, and better position for its own petty good. They bind together not so much directly, but through an indirect bond of wanting in their hearts to see the US lose its significane. Someone how the US in the past decade has had attached to it a stigma as the cause of all that is wrong with the world, I don't know why this is, after all I think the world is in its best shape ever and its due to the helm of the US... but that stigma none the less exists.
The neocons are simply the US re-action to those forces. The US has sat idle during the Clinton years letting "changing" forces determine the fate of the world, and willfully giving up hegemonic powers and influence away increasing the world feeling that such powers or influence are their rights. Now with the new Bush, the neocons are incontrol and they come to encounter a world that operates under real politika and a world that has been conditions to accept the US as giving up its power and influence.
... bah that came out long.. it was meant to be short
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