US turning more to UN for help, diplomats say
NEW YORK -- Two years after the Bush administration warned that the United Nations risked becoming ''irrelevant" if it failed to act on Iraq, the United States is relying heavily on the world body to address a series of core US foreign policy goals, according to UN diplomats and foreign policy specialists.
On the eve of the opening of the General Assembly in New York, which President Bush is set to address today, US officials said they hope to bring Iran before the Security Council to be disciplined for pursuing its nuclear program, push for a larger UN role in elections in Iraq, and push for international action to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has called ''genocide."
Promoting a worldwide ban on human cloning and ''reducing the number of anti-Israel resolutions" are other top US priorities at the UN this year, a State Department spokesman said.
''I think that the Bush administration has finally discovered, as most presidents do discover, that the UN . . . is part of the arsenal for US foreign policy," said Stephen Schlesinger, director of the World Policy Institute, a New York-based foreign policy think tank and author of a book on the founding of the UN. ''The problem is that Bush is probably in the worst position than any president to advance the US goals at the UN because of the US treatment of the UN over Iraq."
Bush is expected to focus on humanitarian concerns such as AIDS and poverty as well as tout progress in Iraq in his speech before the General Assembly today. After his address the president is planning to meet at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel with Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, and Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, key administration allies in its war on terror and in its efforts to stabilize postwar Iraq. Bush also plans to meet with Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.
Bush is addressing the UN as bombings and beheadings by insurgent groups threaten to derail Iraq's elections, planned for January.
Several diplomats from countries that opposed the war in Iraq said that the United Nations had largely moved beyond the tension over Iraq -- Bush's decision to launch the war without Security Council authorization outraged several members -- and are now working jointly to increase the UN's presence on the ground in Iraq.
''We have a joint objective of trying to stabilize Iraq," said a New York-based Western European diplomat who has followed the Security Council closely this year. ''Everyone is now interested in getting the UN more involved."
''US-UN relations are what it has always been: they have good relations when the US needs the UN," said Charles Pena, a specialist at the Cato Institute. ''In the short to medium term the current administration finds itself needing the UN to move forward with elections in Iraq and so our relationship is better obviously than when the president was arguing to go to war."
But Iraq clearly remains a contentious issue. Last week, Secretary General Kofi Annan's comments to the BBC indicating that he considers the Iraq war illegal under international law sparked controversy and anger.
A draft of the speech Annan is scheduled to give today gives another indication: the speech refers to the importance of following the rule of law and mentions abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of US soldiers.
''Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it," reads the draft, obtained yesterday by the Globe. ''And those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it."
Deadlock over Saddam Hussein in early 2003 helped convince Annan to create a high-level panel on how the UN should reform itself to better address international threats ranging from terrorism to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The panel, which includes Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, is expected to issue its much-anticipated report in December with recommendations about how to revamp the Security Council. Reform of the UN appeared to be one of this years hottest topics as an unusually high number of world leaders -- 63 presidents, 25 prime ministers, and 86 foreign ministers -- converged on New York yesterday for today's opening session of the 59th assembly.
Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil have long been jockeying behind the scenes for changes that would add more permanent seats to the Security Council, which has had the same five permanent members since the end of World War II.
