[Peace-discuss] UN resolution does not authorize war

[patton paul]

Published on Thursday, November 14, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
UN Resolution Does Not Authorize US To Use Force Against Iraq
by Stephen Zunes


Despite successfully pushing the U.N. Security Council to toughen further
its already strict inspections regime against Iraq, the Bush
administration appears ready to engage in unilateral military action. "If
the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of further Iraqi
violations, this resolution does not constrain any member state from
acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce
relevant United Nations resolutions," U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations John Negroponte claimed immediately after last Friday's vote.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The U.N. Security Council, in its unanimous adoption of resolution 1441,
declares in Article 14 that it "decides to remain seized of the matter."
This is diplomatic language for asserting that the Security Council alone
has the authority to determine what, if any, action to take regarding
current or future Iraqi violations of their resolutions.

The U.N. Charter declares unequivocally in Articles 41 and 42 that the
U.N. Security Council alone has the power to authorize the use of military
force against any nation in noncompliance of its resolutions. It was the
insistence by France, Russia and other nations that any alleged Iraqi
violations be put before the Security Council to determine the appropriate
response that delayed for seven weeks the adaptation of the U.S.-sponsored
resolution.

Originally, the United States insisted upon the right of any member state
to unilaterally attack Iraq if any single government determined that
Saddam Hussein's regime was violating the strict new guidelines. The U.N.
Security Council categorically rejected the U.S. demand to grant its
members such unprecedented authority to wage war. Instead, the resolution
adopted insists that any alleged violations be brought forward by the
inspection teams consisting of experts in the field, not by any member
state. At such a time, according to the resolution, the Security Council
would "convene immediately in order to consider the situation and the need
for full compliance."

Why, then, has the Bush administration and its supporters in Congress and
the media disingenuously reinterpreted the resolution? Apparently,
President Bush has been determined for some time to go to war regardless
of the level of Iraqi compliance but -- given that public opinion polls
indicate a majority of Americans would support a war against Iraq only if
there was U.N. approval -- he needs to claim U.N. authorization.

Lacking such authorization, he and his congressional and media allies have
decided to claim that the United States has such authorization anyway.

One can therefore picture a scenario like this: In the early stage of the
inspections process, some technical or bureaucratic glitch will emerge
that other Security Council members believe is resolvable, but the United
States will claim to be Iraqi noncompliance. The rest of the Security
Council will insist the problem is not that serious, but the Bush
administration will exaggerate the nature of the dispute and will claim
the right to enforce the resolution unilaterally.

The vast majority of the international community will not support this
conclusion, but Bush and his supporters will claim that the United Nations
is prevaricating again and that it is up to the United States to enforce
U.N. resolutions since the United Nations is supposedly unwilling to do so
itself.

Iraq agreed back in September to accept a return of UN inspectors under
conditions put forward by the Security Council that were already far
stricter than those initially imposed after the Gulf War. In response, the
Bush Administration threatened war unless the Security Council voted to
strengthen them still further, essentially moving the goalposts.

There are more than 100 U.N. Security Council resolutions being violated
by member states. Iraq is in violation of at most 16 of them. Ironically,
Washington has effectively blocked the enforcement of U.N. Security
Council resolutions against many other nations, since they include such
countries as Morocco, Indonesia, Israel and Turkey that are allied with
the United States.

At the same time, the Bush administration insists that the credibility of
the United Nations is at stake if it doesn't enforce by military means the
resolutions against Iraq.

In reality, it is this kind of double standard that threatens the
credibility of the United Nations.

Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace
and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is
Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus project (www.fpif.org)
and author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of
Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2002).