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.In the eyes of conservatives,that tends to delegitimize the world body.In practice, however, the majority of nations in the UN are now dem-ocratic to some degree.And in recent years, the United Nations hasdecided to cast its lot with democracy promotion after decades in whichit remained value-neutral on forms of government (during the Cold War,democracy was code for pro-U.S. ).Secretary-General Kofi Annanboldly took this step at the original Community of Democracies meetingin Warsaw in 2000 when he declared, When the United Nations can trulycall itself a community of democracies, the charter s noble ideals of pro-tecting human rights and social progress in larger freedoms will havebeen brought much closer. For UN officials, democracy promotion hasalready gone well beyond such rhetoric.The UN s annual Human Devel-opment Report in 2002 declared itself in favor of governance that isdemocratic in both form and substance. And like the Community ofDemocracies manifesto, the UN report actually spelled out specific prac-tices that had to be carried out.The UN Development Programme, whichissued the report, had once focused on constructing water wells.But now,said UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown, democratic governanceis our biggest business.This is what countries were asking of us.There arenow 140 countries that have competitive multiparty elections.That s 80countries that have changed columns [from authoritarian rule].That cre-ates a huge demand [for advice] that s got to be met by somebody. ³²In the spring of 2002 the UNDP also issued an unprecedented reportthat harshly laid out the failings of Arab societies.Calling them rich, butnot developed, the report detailed the deficits of democracy, economicmodernization, and women s rights that were favorite targets of the When Ideas Bite Back 185American neoconservatives, who (rightly) view these deficiencies as thereal cause of the societal rage that can lead to terrorism.It noted that theArab world suffers from a lower rate of Internet connectivity than evensub-Saharan Africa, and that education is so backward and cut-off thatthe entire Arab world translates from other languages only one-fifth ofthe books that Greece does.The report was not exactly the kind of thingthat would have come out of the Bush administration, which was peopledwith pro-Israel hawksÞöits introduction was sugarcoated with a pander-ing section that blamed Israel for many Arab ills Þö but nonetheless itrocked the Arab world, said Malloch Brown. Nothing we ve published inmy time has been as influential. One reason the report had impact wasthat it was not another diktat from Washington.Quite the contrary.Itadded several layers of buffer: Not only was the report commissioned bythe United Nations, of which the Arab world was a part, it was authoredand overseen by an all-Arab advisory group and the former deputy primeminister of Jordan.Of course, the news was not all good, since the reportwas also supported by many opposition Islamist parties.³³ But that s areminder that institutional sluggishness and bureaucracy can sometimeswork in our favor.Democracy by committee is a glacial process Þö and,frankly, that s how we want it to happen in the Arab world.When itcomes to self-determination, the need to forge consensus in the interna-tional community will also slow down new movements for statehood.Even regional organizationsÞöwhich, as we will see in the next chapter,have become increasingly pertinent to America s national interestÞöhavegrown Americanized in terms of their values.The Bush administrationdiscovered this to its embarrassment in April 2002, when a coup appearedto topple Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.Administration officials,who were intensely frustrated with Chávez because of his maverick viewsand courting of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, were less than forthright ininsisting that he be restored to power.It was the Organization of Ameri-can StatesÞöa U.S.-founded organization that once was toothless and per-missive of dictatorshipÞöthat insisted that Chávez s democratic legitimacybe observed.He was restored to power.In Africa, the last continent thatcould be considered a refuge of dictators, national leaders in 2002 createdthe new African Union to replace the old Organization of African Unity 186 At War with Ourselvesand declared their objectives are to promote democratic principles andinstitutions. ³tSo, as unpleasant and messy as it may seem, the best alternative is towork through the international system we have built, even in values pro-motion.That is why, ultimately, the Bush administration s disavowal ofinternational norms and new institutions such as the International Crim-inal Court was so self-defeating.The problem of international law work-ing against usÞöas it might at the ICCÞöwill have to be finessed.But that,after all, is what lawyers are for.The key is to finesse from within, ratherthan have oneself branded as a rogue from without.To paraphraseThomas More in A Man for All Seasons, if we cut down all the laws in theland to get at the devil, we will find ourselves vulnerable when we our-selves try to apply the lawÞöas Bush did against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.Having abjured international law and begun his campaign against Sad-dam by threatening unilateral war, Bush never really regained his credibil-ity at the United Nations when he invoked Saddam s violations of UNresolutions as a way of justifying a campaign against him.But for many Americans the United Nations still represents the worstof ineffectual multilateralism and relinquished sovereignty.So we mustgo into some detail about what is wrong with the UNÞöand there is plentyÞöand what can still be made right. 6Rethinking MultilateralismThe United Nations was set up not to get us to heaven, but onlyto save us from hell.Winston ChurchillRichard Holbrooke is known in diplomatic circles as the bull-dozer, and he looks the part [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.In the eyes of conservatives,that tends to delegitimize the world body.In practice, however, the majority of nations in the UN are now dem-ocratic to some degree.And in recent years, the United Nations hasdecided to cast its lot with democracy promotion after decades in whichit remained value-neutral on forms of government (during the Cold War,democracy was code for pro-U.S. ).Secretary-General Kofi Annanboldly took this step at the original Community of Democracies meetingin Warsaw in 2000 when he declared, When the United Nations can trulycall itself a community of democracies, the charter s noble ideals of pro-tecting human rights and social progress in larger freedoms will havebeen brought much closer. For UN officials, democracy promotion hasalready gone well beyond such rhetoric.The UN s annual Human Devel-opment Report in 2002 declared itself in favor of governance that isdemocratic in both form and substance. And like the Community ofDemocracies manifesto, the UN report actually spelled out specific prac-tices that had to be carried out.The UN Development Programme, whichissued the report, had once focused on constructing water wells.But now,said UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown, democratic governanceis our biggest business.This is what countries were asking of us.There arenow 140 countries that have competitive multiparty elections.That s 80countries that have changed columns [from authoritarian rule].That cre-ates a huge demand [for advice] that s got to be met by somebody. ³²In the spring of 2002 the UNDP also issued an unprecedented reportthat harshly laid out the failings of Arab societies.Calling them rich, butnot developed, the report detailed the deficits of democracy, economicmodernization, and women s rights that were favorite targets of the When Ideas Bite Back 185American neoconservatives, who (rightly) view these deficiencies as thereal cause of the societal rage that can lead to terrorism.It noted that theArab world suffers from a lower rate of Internet connectivity than evensub-Saharan Africa, and that education is so backward and cut-off thatthe entire Arab world translates from other languages only one-fifth ofthe books that Greece does.The report was not exactly the kind of thingthat would have come out of the Bush administration, which was peopledwith pro-Israel hawksÞöits introduction was sugarcoated with a pander-ing section that blamed Israel for many Arab ills Þö but nonetheless itrocked the Arab world, said Malloch Brown. Nothing we ve published inmy time has been as influential. One reason the report had impact wasthat it was not another diktat from Washington.Quite the contrary.Itadded several layers of buffer: Not only was the report commissioned bythe United Nations, of which the Arab world was a part, it was authoredand overseen by an all-Arab advisory group and the former deputy primeminister of Jordan.Of course, the news was not all good, since the reportwas also supported by many opposition Islamist parties.³³ But that s areminder that institutional sluggishness and bureaucracy can sometimeswork in our favor.Democracy by committee is a glacial process Þö and,frankly, that s how we want it to happen in the Arab world.When itcomes to self-determination, the need to forge consensus in the interna-tional community will also slow down new movements for statehood.Even regional organizationsÞöwhich, as we will see in the next chapter,have become increasingly pertinent to America s national interestÞöhavegrown Americanized in terms of their values.The Bush administrationdiscovered this to its embarrassment in April 2002, when a coup appearedto topple Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.Administration officials,who were intensely frustrated with Chávez because of his maverick viewsand courting of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, were less than forthright ininsisting that he be restored to power.It was the Organization of Ameri-can StatesÞöa U.S.-founded organization that once was toothless and per-missive of dictatorshipÞöthat insisted that Chávez s democratic legitimacybe observed.He was restored to power.In Africa, the last continent thatcould be considered a refuge of dictators, national leaders in 2002 createdthe new African Union to replace the old Organization of African Unity 186 At War with Ourselvesand declared their objectives are to promote democratic principles andinstitutions. ³tSo, as unpleasant and messy as it may seem, the best alternative is towork through the international system we have built, even in values pro-motion.That is why, ultimately, the Bush administration s disavowal ofinternational norms and new institutions such as the International Crim-inal Court was so self-defeating.The problem of international law work-ing against usÞöas it might at the ICCÞöwill have to be finessed.But that,after all, is what lawyers are for.The key is to finesse from within, ratherthan have oneself branded as a rogue from without.To paraphraseThomas More in A Man for All Seasons, if we cut down all the laws in theland to get at the devil, we will find ourselves vulnerable when we our-selves try to apply the lawÞöas Bush did against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.Having abjured international law and begun his campaign against Sad-dam by threatening unilateral war, Bush never really regained his credibil-ity at the United Nations when he invoked Saddam s violations of UNresolutions as a way of justifying a campaign against him.But for many Americans the United Nations still represents the worstof ineffectual multilateralism and relinquished sovereignty.So we mustgo into some detail about what is wrong with the UNÞöand there is plentyÞöand what can still be made right. 6Rethinking MultilateralismThe United Nations was set up not to get us to heaven, but onlyto save us from hell.Winston ChurchillRichard Holbrooke is known in diplomatic circles as the bull-dozer, and he looks the part [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]