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CIAO DATE: 12/03
We Are Better Off without That UN Resolution
On The Issues
March 2003
By going to war without Security Council approval, the United States has avoided perpetuating the misguided idea that council authorization is necessary for the legitimate use of force abroad. American power has done much more to preserve peace than the Security Council, and thus subordinating the former to the latter would be a dangerous mistake. Instead, in order to alleviate fears about American power, Washington should stress its commitment to international law, of which the Security Council is only one part.
In failing to secure a UN Security Council resolution explicitly authorizing war in Iraq, the United States dodged a bullet. Merci, Monsieur Chirac. To be sure, such a mandate would have ameliorated the anti-American sentiment bubbling up around the globe and would have made life easier for Britain's Tony Blair, Spain's Jose Mar'a Aznar, and other faithful allies who have gone out on a limb to stand with us. But it would have created a presumption that Security Council approval is the necessary prerequisite for the use of American force abroad, and this would have posed incalculable dangers to world peace in the long term.
The debate about Iraq has had much less to do with Iraq than with the uses of American power. Rarely in history has a single nation enjoyed such overwhelming military supremacy that no balance of power is conceivable. Quite naturally this makes the rest of the world anxious. Since the United States has no penchant for imperialism, the others are not so frightened that they are boosting their arms budgets or forging new military alliances (as assuredly they would be doing were Russia, China, Germany, or even, dare one say, France standing in America's shoes). But still they seek political instruments to tame our strength.
Constraining American Power
The goal is to win America's acquiescence in rules about how its power is to be used. Ergo, the demand that the United States act only with the assent of the Security Council, an idea that predates the Iraq crisis. It began to be voiced loudly by European leaders in the mid-1990s when the debate about the future of NATO turned to "out of area" missions. Our NATO partners were nervous that we would drag them into peace-enforcement missions in Southern or Eastern Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. Thus they formulated the proposition that any such action by the United States required a Security Council "mandate."
This, however, is a far tighter constraint than is required by international law and could be fatally paralyzing. After all, NATO itself operated on the assumption that the U.S. would rush to repulse any Soviet thrust westward, although, given the Soviet veto, no Security Council action could have been expected. The passing of the cold war gave rise to hopes that the Security Council would function more meaningfully, and its actions in the first Gulf War seemed to confirm those hopes. But they were dashed a year later when war broke out in Bosnia. While some quarter-million human lives were ruthlessly erased, the council did worse than sit on the sidelines: It enforced an arms embargo that had the lopsided effect of hog-tying the victim while the aggressor had his way. Nor did the council act during the worst episode of genocide since Hitler, the 1994 slaughter of Rwandan Tutsis.
The Security Council was conceived by the UN's founders as the bulwark of peace, but this proved to be a pipe dream. On the rare occasions when the council has acted against aggressors-in Korea in 1950 and the Persian Gulf in 1991-the U.S. has done most of the heavy lifting. While the UN has performed no effective peace-enforcement without the United States, the latter has in many cases upheld the peace without the UN. The use or threat of American force preserved not only the independence of Western Europe against the Soviet Union, but also that of Iran, Yugoslavia, and Romania. It also helped safeguard Taiwan against the encroachment of China, and, at various moments, Jordan and Lebanon against Syria. The harsh reality is that American power does much more than the Security Council to preserve the peace. To subordinate the former to the latter would be a terrible mistake.
Value of International Law
America cannot ignore the reality that our power is frightening to others. It is in our interest to assuage those fears so that others do not take more radical measures against us. The best answer is to underscore our commitment to international law. Under the law, there are a few bases for the use of force. A Security Council resolution is one, but not the only one. The UN Charter recognizes an "inherent right of self-defense and collective self defense." This remains the legal basis for NATO as well as our other defense commitments. Had we liberated Kuwait under this rubric in 1991 rather than obtaining a Security Council resolution, we might not have felt inhibited from removing Saddam Hussein from power.
There also exists, as all authorities agree, some right, albeit ill-defined, of "humanitarian intervention," applicable in very extreme cases, such as the 1994 Rwandan tragedy. And there are a few other legal bases for force, such as defending one's own citizens or assisting a lawful government. Taken together, these tenets would allow us to act militarily in almost all cases in which there was strong reason to do so (although they probably would not have allowed our 1999 Kosovo bombing campaign). They certainly provide ample legal grounds for removing Saddam despite our failure in the Security Council. These are to be found in Iraq's blatant violation of the terms of the 1991 cease-fire, as well as in President Bush's cogent legal case for preemptive self-defense.
A reaffirmation not only of our desire to see the law upheld against tyrants like Saddam, but also of our readiness to be constrained by law ourselves, would alleviate-although not eliminate-the world's fears of American power. This is a far better course than acquiescing in the ill-conceived demand that all use of force must flow from the Security Council. The world would be anything but safer if a principle became enshrined that deterred the U.S. from defending Taiwan without Beijing's permission or Poland without Russia's, or Israel without the assent of the UN.
In that event, it is not America itself that would pay the price. No "parchment barrier" would dissuade the U.S. from self-defense. Rather, the losers would be the many others who depend on our active or implicit protection. Happily, those most eager to cut us down to size have overplayed their hand and blown their chance to tie us down in the duct tape of the UN. Now we can get on with the job of removing Saddam and sending a message to would-be Saddams not to bank on the Security Council (or France) to provide them a shield.
Joshua Muravchik is a resident scholar at AEI.
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