By Greg C. Reeson
It's hard to even pay attention any more when the United Nations Security Council meets to discuss a global security situation. Nothing ever gets done. A meeting of the UNSC is the ultimate exercise in futility, a display of impotence that we honestly could do without.
The latest farce from the UN: a failure by the UNSC to reach agreement on how to respond to North Korea's weekend missile launch. They couldn't even agree on a condemnation.
This is great. A news story I read this morning quoted Mexico's UN Ambassador as saying, "Members of the Security Council agreed to continue consultations on an appropriate action by the council in accordance with its responsibilities given the urgency of the matter."
The urgency of the matter? It's so urgent that they agree to continue consultations? Until when? Don't hold your breath waiting for China to get on board. Or the Russians.
The story also says, "US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice told reporters that additional consultations would continue both here and in capitals around the world to try to agree 'a clear and strong response from the council.'"
The clear and strong message Pyongyang is getting is that the international community can't agree on anything at all. The Security Council is impotent when it comes to global security matters, and it has proven it time and time again. We (the United States and our European allies) wanted a strong condemnation (which I'm sure would leave the North Korean regime quivering in their boots) but, the story says, "...Russia, China, Libya, Uganda and Vietnam called for restraint in the council's reaction so as not to endanger the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament, the diplomat added."
Yes, of course. By all means, let's be sure that we don't do anything that might offend the North Koreans. Did none of those objecting to a meaningless verbal condemnation find it offensive that North Korea fired a missile through Japanese airspace in the first place?
The problem here is that there is no credible threat of the use of force, and without the backing of military force, diplomacy is meaningless.
President Obama made a statement saying that "rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something." Well, without the credible threat of military force, the words don't mean anything.
Didn't President Bush warn of the UN's irrelevance for its failure to take action against Saddam Hussein for his repeated violations of UNSC resolutions?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f7268b4a2905fc581431034aca2ff82a.11&show_article=1