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The UN will survive this storm

This article is more than 21 years old
War might sideline the Security Council, but it would be hauled back on to the pitch

The fate of the United Nations, and of its vision of international order, hangs on the resolution of the ill-tempered row between two groups of powers that are supposed to be friends and allies. Both groups, unfortunately, are using the language of self-righteousness: the US and coalition partners insist that a bullying dictator must be opposed and UN resolutions implemented, while the French-led opposition insists that force is an absolute last resort. Is it possible to find common ground? If not, where does that leave not just the UN, but also any American-led used of force against Iraq?

It is astounding that the biological, chemical and nuclear disarmament imposed on Iraq in March-April 1991 (which was to have been completed by July 1991) should, 12 years later, be the subject of such a deep rift. The reason goes well beyond Iraq. On both sides, different interests, and different ideas about world order, are involved.

The US has developed a doctrine of preventive intervention that alarms other states and makes them more resistant to supporting American military action than they would be if the Iraq question were considered in isolation. France, Germany and Russia, for their part, seem reluctant to concede the principle that the maintenance of international order requires the occasional use and threat of force against sovereign states, and that it may be better to co-operate constructively with the enforcer than to undermine its efforts.

There is no way that the differences of philosophy and interest between the two groups can be overcome in the next days and weeks, but it is possible to ask for a more honest debate and to suggest that the exercise of patience by the US-led coalition would be a small price to pay if it improved the prospect of substantive agreement in the Security Council.

All sides need to desist from using the shallow language that has been allowed to dominate the debate. Take the term commonly used for the imminent possible hostilities, 'Second Gulf War'. It would be the third such war, and to call it anything else is to forget the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, which caused far more casualties than the war of 1991. Likewise the term 'second resolution', to describe a possible Security Council resolution allowing for force against Iraq, implies forgetting that it would be the 18th resolution demanding Iraqi disarmament.

The opponents of a new resolution have repeatedly implied in their public statements that inspections are a simple alternative to use of force. Jack Straw was right to remind them in the Security Council on Friday that only the threat of military action against Iraq had secured Iraq's acceptance of the inspectors, and its co-operation (albeit limited) with them. In that sense, the threat, and even use of force, has already begun and it is not simply confined to an instrument of last resort.

Even today, if unity could be achieved in the Security Council on a set of disarmament targets and deadlines, it is possible that the crisis could be resolved by Iraqi co-operation and without an all-out war. The measured conclusions of Hans Blix's latest report to the Security Council point more towards such an approach than they do to the immediate invasion of Iraq.

A demonstration of resolve, such as imposing a no-fly zone over the whole country until disarmament is completed, would not prejudice other courses of action, but could show a shared acceptance that some force is needed.

To ask for any more patience from the US and UK, whose forces are deployed in a desert that will become warmer by the week and whose governments have already waited more than 11 years since Iraqi disarmament was supposed to be complete, may be asking a lot. Yet these governments have a huge job to do to persuade the rest of the world of the legitimacy of their case - not least because in the past year they have produced doctrines and intelligence reports that have been unconvincing.

Moreover, the US has sometimes appeared to be not merely determined, but actually itching for war: this has alarmed its allies at least as much as its adversaries. For the US to show respect for opinion at the UN would be to undo some of the damage done by its interventionist doctrine. But for that to happen opinion at the UN has to be worth respecting.

The worst may come to the worst. It remains a possibility that a Security Council resolution authorising force will fail, whether because it does not collect the necessary nine votes, or because it does collect them but is vetoed by one or more of the Permanent Five. The prospect then arises of US-led coalition going to war with Iraq without benefit of authorisation from the very body whose resolutions it has claimed to uphold. The UK, whatever it did, would be caught in the wake of that calamity.

What is the legality of the US and UK pushing ahead in such circumstances? There are many distinguished international lawyers, including the 16 whose letter was published in the Guardian on Friday, who would assert that such action is without justification in international law. However, other international lawyers argue that the 1991 cease-fire with Iraq was explicitly conditional on Iraq's implementation of the disarmament terms of the settlement, and that the US could be entitled at some point to view the ceasefire as having lapsed - an argument I find quite persuasive. Some, too, argue that in view of terrorist dangers the right of self-defence of the US and other states is involved. There could also be an argument that, as in Kosovo in 1999, there is a case for acting outside the UN for a period, before obtaining UN authorisation for a new administration of the 'liberated' territory.

These arguments justifying the use of force are not negligible, but they are far more open to contestation than a new Security Council resolution authorising force would be. If the US and UK ignored a veto, would that entitle others to over-ride other vetoes? It would certainly reinforce questions as to whether the UK was entitled to its place on the Security Council.

Will the UN lose all credibility if the Security Council fails to act now? The UN's demise has been announced on numerous occasions in the past. It was irrelevant to most Cold War crises when they involved direct confrontation between the superpowers. It had practically no role in some of the major measures of US-Soviet arms control. It failed to secure effective action over the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the invasion of the UN-proclaimed 'safe area' of Srebrenica in 1995. Yet the UN survived such disasters because it serves vital purposes: it is not just a stage on which old actors can perform their allotted roles or a receptacle for impossible problems, but a forum for securing agreement on a vast range of common issues.

Iraq is different from the UN's previous crises. Then, the problem was that major powers had no hope of agreement in the Security Council, or were insufficiently committed to action on its behalf. Never, before 2003, has a major power sought to act militarily on behalf of the UN and received such a major theatrical rebuff. If the ill-tempered row persists, the UN will not die, but it is likely to be off the playing field and confined to the sidelines until such time as the limitations of the US-led international order require that, even if injured, it be hauled back on to the pitch.

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