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U.S. strategies undermine U.N.

By Simon Tisdall

LONDON, SEPT. 21. The United States President, George W. Bush, will outline his vision for ``building a better world'' when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly later today. But his ideas about how to achieve that laudable aim remain problematic for the international community.

Not long ago, Mr Bush was under attack for bypassing the U.N. and going to war in Iraq without what the U.K. Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, described in recently leaked memos from London as a necessary ``fresh mandate'' from the Security Council.

In need of urgent help in a chaotic post-war Iraq, Mr Bush subsequently changed his tune. But ostensibly greater U.S. willingness to work with the U.N. is creating new sets of difficulties.

On the one hand, unchanging U.S. determination to advance its national policy aims still tends to divide the Council and other U.N. bodies, as before, between the ``West'' and the rest.

On the other hand, superior U.S. leverage means it usually gets its way, with the result that the U.N. is perceived, unjustly, as acting as Washington's tool. Increasingly, the U.N. is accused of double standards.

The consequence

One consequence can be seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, where growing hostility to the U.N. has resulted from its apparently close identification with U.S. policies. Three other international flashpoints — Syria, Iran and Sudan — also illustrate the perils for the U.N. of America's closer embrace. On September 2, a divided Security Council passed a U.S. resolution, co-sponsored by Britain, France and Germany, demanding presidential elections in Lebanon free from Syrian manipulation and a Syrian troop withdrawal.

Several previous resolutions have sought an end to the Syrian presence, which dates back to the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. But both Damascus and Beirut maintain the issue can only be resolved in the context of an overall West Asia peace settlement that must include Israel's adherence to all relevant U.N. resolutions.

It is plain that refocusing on Lebanon through the U.N. bolsters several related U.S. aims. Most importantly, it increases the pressure on Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad, to stop infiltration into Iraq by militants.

Taken in isolation, some of the U.S. objectives are desirable. And the fact that the U.S. reopened a high-level dialogue with Syria this month is encouraging. But American tactics make it hard for Syria publicly to reciprocate and present the U.N. with a dilemma. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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