Uncle Sam Can’t Fill U.N.’s Shoes

by Paul Findley

The veteran diplomat at the United Nations put it bluntly: “Many of the diplomats at the United Nations will not be happy if Madeleine Albright becomes the new U.S. Secretary of State. She is not well liked around here.”

Richard H. Curtiss, a retired U.S. foreign service officer who has spent the past 12 years bringing understanding of the Mid-east as editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, told a Chicago audience Dec. 29 that Albright’s selection is “a disaster.”

United Nations Plaza is certain to echo with unflattering nicknames reminiscent of the days when the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright, was derided by his critics as “Senator Half-bright.” Fulbright’s critics were incensed by the senator’s thoughtful, scholarly, insightful challenge of U.S. foreign policies, especially American bias in favor of Israeli interests and against Arab rights, and presidential use of military force in Vietnam.

In sharp contrast, Albright’s critics reflect unhappily on her behavior at the United Nations, where she spearheaded the needlessly uncivil assault against the re-election of Boutros Boutros-Ghali as secretary-general of the U.N.

With Albright carrying the veto flag, the United States forced the defeat of the highly popular Boutros-Ghali. All other members of the U.N. Security Council, including America’s closest allies, voted to re-elect the hardworking and effective Egyptian diplomat. If the vote had gone to the U.N. General Assembly, the only votes against Boutros-Ghali would likely have been cast by the ambassadors from the United States and Israel.

The episode does not foreshadow a cordial relationship between the secretary of state designate and her diplomatic peers worldwide. It is a sobering hint that, under Albright, the United States will try to manage world affairs with little regard for the views and reactions of other states, even those of the North Atlantic community Great Britain and France, in particular with which it has had a close relationship for many years. It suggests new problems ahead for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where Clinton has had recurring trouble over Bosnia policy.

The prospect of discord does not arise entirely from the Boutros-Ghali showdown. Wolf Fuhrig, a political scientist and educator in my hometown, Jacksonville, Illinois, uses words that are more muted but no less critical than those of editor Curtiss.

He warns of the “assertive multilateralism” that Albright has preached in the past four years from her ambassadorial rostrum. Fuhrig predicts that she “will undoubtedly represent the U.S. to the world with a more forceful agenda and a more strident tone” than predecessor Warren Christopher.

“Albright wants our allies to concede our right to lead the world.”

He also predicts the unpopularity of Albright’s assertive multilateralism. He writes: “She wants our allies to share the burdens of worldwide peacemaking and peacekeeping, but on the condition that they concede our right to lead the world, politically and militarily. In other words, Albright wants us to be the world’s sheriff, while the other countries serve as our sheriff’s deputies. A clever concept indeed. So far, it has only one flaw: no takers.”

The United States should never be reluctant to go down to defeat, or even stand alone, in the United Nations provided the issue is principled. But if principle was involved in its opposition to Boutros-Ghali, it was never expressed.

The ever-mild-mannered Warren Christopher said it plainly and simply before the secretary-general withdrew his name from consideration: “The president of the United States decided sometime ago that he would oppose the re-election of Boutros-Ghali.”

He could have added that Albright successfully opposed Christopher’s proposal that Boutros-Ghali be given a face-saving one-year extension in the job. The real story behind the American lone-eagle veto of the U.N.’s chief executive if published will, I am sure, disclose that it has arisen from petty animus, perhaps some affrontreal or perceivedto President Bill Clinton or Ambassador Albright.

It is likely that it came from Boutros-Ghali’s criticism of Israel’s ghastly shelling last April of the U.N. compound in Qana, Lebanon when Israeli artillery killed more than a hundred innocent civilians, including women and children, who had gathered there for shelter from Israel’s unprovoked broad assault on southern Lebanon.

In contrast to Boutros-Ghali’s condemnation, Clinton assessed no blame whatever on Israel. The U.S. president ignored the fact that almost all violence that preceded the Israeli actions had been confined to Lebanese territory controlled by Israeli forces. Hezbollah, a Lebanese party with growing political and military strength, was simply trying to rid Lebanese territory of foreign military forces. Clinton received loud applause from a Jewish audience in Washington when he declared that Lebanon’s Hezbollah political-military forces, not Israel, should be held responsible for all the death and destruction that resulted from Israel’s massive invasion.

A Sealed Fate

Boutros-Ghali’s fate was almost sealed when he failed to say “yes” to Clinton’s defense of Israel’s unprovoked bloody assault. Clinton’s misrepresentation of culpability was as singular and transparent as the U.S. administration’s later opposition to Boutros-Ghali. Through the activities of Albright at New York, Clinton stood alone on both occasions.

Albright criticized Boutros-Ghali for failing to reform the U.N., overlooking his leadership in cutting U.N. bureaucracy and undertaking more peacekeeping programs than at any time since the U.N. was founded. He repeatedly called for greater military resources at U.N. command, wanting the tools that would enable the organization to respond more promptly and decisively in trouble spots.

Albright’s interest in “assertive multilaterism” is a product of her experience under Zbigniew Bzezinksi in the Jimmy Carter White House. Then and subsequently, her boss argued for U.S. leadership in dealing with trouble spots worldwide. He later made the case in his 1992 book, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century. He writes that it would be a global calamityutter chaosif the United States fails to provide worldwide leadership. He worries that many Americans, frustrated with bitter experiences in Korea, Vietnam and Somalia, are flirting with isolationism. The popularity of presidential candidates Patrick Buchanan and Ross Perot are evidence of this mood.

What Albright seems to have missed is the necessity for cooperative decision-making in multinational undertakings. The U.S. is, of course, the world’s only superpower. Its military and economic resources are the greatest in the world. But this gives us neither the right nor the capacity to police the world. The U.N., with all its shortcomings, remains the best hope for worldwide security and justice.