Will America’s Post-Sept. 11 Love Affair With the U.N. Be Just Another One-Year Stand?

By Ian Williams

Sept. 11 may represent a watershed in recent U.S. diplomatic history. For the first time America suffered on its mainland the direct consequences of its government’s policy abroad. Hitherto, foreign policy was what the U.S. did to foreigners, not vice versa. Now, instead of policy being formed in a vacuous chamber of congressional lobbies, the executive branch had to deal with its counterparts abroad. The result was that, firstly, the wilder excesses of the pro-Israel faction had to be tamed. Baghdad and Tehran, therefore, are still intact. Secondly, that faction’s frequent allies, the isolationist wing, became totally irrelevant. All the rhetoric about the U.N. disappeared as the world body proved indispensable to building a coalition to go after Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts.

It seems possible that Washington might resume its former multilateral outlook, with due respect to the views of other nations, which are, of course, usually expressed through the much vilified U.N. That would necessarily have consequences in broader applications such as U.S. Middle East policy.

While they wait to see whether America’s love affair with the organization is a one-year stand, as it was at the time of the Gulf war, or a longer term liaison, U.N. diplomats soon felt vindicated at the “blank check” resolution they had passed the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, calling on “all states to work together to bring to justice the perpetrators” (see November Washington Report, p. 36). Initially some were worried at the U.S. reaction. However, the U.S. then returned to ask for a new resolution, restating the first, but invoking the U.N. Charter’s Chapter VII, which makes compliance compulsory. Before that, Congress had dropped its hold on the $590 million in agreed dues payments on which it was sitting in yet another shameless breach of America’s word of honor to other U.N. delegations.

The American-drafted resolution (Security Council Resolution 1373) listed a series of measures it expected states to take against terrorist activities and established a Security Council Committee against Terrorism under the chairmanship of British Representative Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Preferring to take a long-term view, the committee has pretty much opted out from consideration of the actual war. As Greenstock himself told the press, “It is not the primary purpose of the Counter-Terrorism Committee to get into the politics of what is happening in the short-term…[or]…to try and solve problems that are for the General Assembly. Or to try and define terrorism, or otherwise solve some of the sensitive political issues that are directly, or indirectly attached to the fight against terrorism.”

The committee is sending out a questionnaire to each member state on what legislation and regulations they have in effect: and what they propose to do to fill in the gaps.

States will make their own decisions on what constitutes terrorism.

In the face of the attack the General Assembly had postponed the usual Heads of State jamboree until the second week of November, while the ordinary delegates flung themselves into the task of drafting an anti-terrorism convention. As Ambassador Greenstock so delicately suggested, a major problem is arriving at a definition of “terrorism.” Of course the Middle East is a major focus, since some states may consider Ariel Sharon’s assassination policy well within the ambit, while the “Butcher of Beirut” looks at Hezbollah as terrorist.

Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton had put the U.S. on the side of the quibblers at July’s U.N. conference on small arms control. He had said at the time, “We do not support measures limiting [small arms] trade solely to governments. This proposal, we believe, is both conceptually and practically flawed. Perhaps most important, this proposal would preclude assistance to an oppressed non-state group defending itself from a genocidal government. Distinctions between governments and non-governments are irrelevant in determining responsible and irresponsible end-users of arms.”

Similar arguments, of course, arose at the racism conference in Durban in September.

Faced with the impending mid-November arrival of heads of state for the postponed opening of the General Assembly, there was hasty last-minute work on a compromise anti-terrorism convention. There was some hope that it would be solved—perhaps using the fudge adopted at the Durban conference, quoting the U.N. Charter on the right to self-determination. In practical terms, however, it means that states will make their own decisions on what constitutes terrorism and who are freedom fighters—Contras, Mujahideen or Hezbollah.

A Changed Attitude

Another sign of Washington’s changed attitude to the U.N. was its eventual warm welcome for veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as Kofi Annan’s special envoy for Afghanistan. One major fear the U.N. has, in fact, is that the U.S. and its allies may seek to involve the organization beyond its capabilities. Brahimi, backed by the secretary-general, has been very keen to eschew any “nation-building” or major peacekeeping role for the U.N., on the lines of Kosovo or East Timor. “I do not see the U.N. going in to run Afghanistan as a protectorate,” Secretary-General Annan declared.

“It will be a task of mammoth proportions,” added Brahimi, “requiring the financial effort and the support of all those countries which have failed Afghanistan for all these years. They have promised not to repeat the mistakes of the past—that is very encouraging. The biggest countries in the world recognize publicly that they failed Afghanistan in the past, that they left the Afghan people to themselves and they are saying—and I think we should give the benefit of the doubt—that they want to now help the people of Afghanistan.”

Most diplomats at the U.N. confess that they see few if any good outcomes for the military operations in Afghanistan. The most they hope for is the least harmful results. All too often, unfortunately, the U.N. finds such murky situations foisted on it by nations that do not want direct association with failure themselves. In preparation, U.N. officials are busily writing contingency plans that write themselves out of key roles, but happily offer assistance to whatever indigenous Afghan administration can be cobbled together from the local factions.

Deserted Sahrawis

In the last days of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Portugal embarrassed Australia by suing Canberra in the World Court over the Timor Gap Treaty, which divided up the spoils of East Timor between Indonesia and Australia. Portugal was the legal power since it had never relinquished its claim to the territory, and there had not been an internationally accepted act of self-determination. The suit lost because, while accomplice Australia had accepted the jurisdiction of the court, the perpetrator, Indonesia, had not.

This year, after decades of holding back, oil companies are moving on Western Sahara’s off-shore possibilities. American company Kerr-McGee and French company TotalFinaElf have signed an exploration deal for the northern part of the coast line. Polisario has sent letters to the companies concerned, and is considering what legal action they might take. Ahmed Boukhari, Polisario’s representative to the United Nations, went to see Kofi Annan at the end of October to register protests about that and Moroccan King Mohamed VI’s visit to the disputed territory.

On the legal side, since Spain has relinquished all claim to the territory, there is no state with the standing to sue. International Law professor Roger Clark of Rutgers University, who had helped with the Portuguese case, suggested that one way forward for Polisario and its supporters would be to get the General Assembly to refer the case to The Hague.

In view of Morocco’s influential friends, this would be a long shot, but the support from the OAU and others may make it feasible. That was demonstrated with the unanimous vote at the U.N. Decolonization committee in October reasserting the validity of the original peace plan, rather than the James Baker-inspired, Rabat-desired “Framework Peace plan.” If oil were ever to start flowing, it would prove even more difficult to persuade Morocco to let go of the territory, not least since the new king seems even more combative about the issue than his father.

Deserted Palestinians

In November the Islamic and Arab states were considering taking the issue of Sharon’s behavior in the occupied territories to the Security Council. It may be surprising that it had not been there from the beginning, but, after all, this is the United Nations. Diplomats reported that the U.S. was not averse to the idea of a presidential statement, which is a possible indication of just how upset the Bush administration is with the Israeli prime minister’s persistent efforts to sabotage all hope of enlisting Arab or Muslim states in the coalition against the Taliban.

As we go to press, it is not clear whether a statement alone would satisfy the Palestinians, or whether they would be prepared to risk a resolution and a veto. But since the Israeli lobby and Sharon have heaped calumnies on President George W. Bush, comparing him with Neville Chamberlain, the administration has little to lose and a big point to make if it goes ahead. After all, Washington can expect little cooperation from a prime minister so closely implicated in Sabra and Shatila and whose political antecedents’ role in World War II was to engage in clandestine negotiations with the Nazis in Istanbul and assassinate British officials as the Nazis knocked on the gates of the Middle East.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations.