Here's a change of pace for me. This is David Brooks's op-ed from today's Times on why he thinks Bolton is a good choice to be Ambassador. I strongly disagree with that conclusion, but I found that I do agree with a great many of the points that Brooks makes about the UN's place in the world. So I'd be interested to hear how others react to his opinons, both Americans and others from around the world. I only ask that before you post you read what Brooks has to say and then if you wish to disagree, at least point out why you think he's wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/14/opinion/14brooks.html

Loudly, With a Big Stick
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: April 14, 2005

I don't like John Bolton's management style. Nor am I a big fan of his foreign policy views. He doesn't really believe in using U.S. power to end genocide or promote democracy.

But it is ridiculous to say he doesn't believe in the United Nations. This is a canard spread by journalists who haven't bothered to read his stuff and by crafty politicians who aren't willing to say what the Bolton debate is really about.

The Bolton controversy isn't about whether we believe in the U.N. mission. It's about which U.N. mission we believe in.

From the start, the U.N. has had two rival missions. Some people saw it as a place where sovereign nations could work together to solve problems. But other people saw it as the beginnings of a world government.

This world government dream crashed on the rocks of reality, but as Jeremy Rabkin of Cornell has observed, the federalist idea has been replaced by a squishier but equally pervasive concept: the dream of "global governance."

The people who talk about global governance begin with the same premises as the world government types: the belief that a world of separate nations, living by the law of the jungle, will inevitably be a violent world. Instead, these people believe, some supranational authority should be set up to settle international disputes by rule of law.

They know we're not close to a global version of the European superstate. So they are content to champion creeping institutions like the International Criminal Court. They treat U.N. General Assembly resolutions as an emerging body of international law. They seek to foment a social atmosphere in which positions taken by multilateral organizations are deemed to have more "legitimacy" than positions taken by democratic nations.

John Bolton is just the guy to explain why this vaporous global-governance notion is a dangerous illusion, and that we Americans, like most other peoples, will never accept it.

We'll never accept it, first, because it is undemocratic. It is impossible to set up legitimate global authorities because there is no global democracy, no sense of common peoplehood and trust. So multilateral organizations can never look like legislatures, with open debate, up or down votes and the losers accepting majority decisions.

Instead, they look like meetings of unelected elites, of technocrats who make decisions in secret and who rely upon intentionally impenetrable language, who settle differences through arcane fudges. Americans, like most peoples, will never surrender even a bit of their national democracy for the sake of multilateral technocracy.

Second, we will never accept global governance because it inevitably devolves into corruption. The panoply of U.N. scandals flows from a single source: the lack of democratic accountability. These supranational organizations exist in their own insular, self-indulgent aerie.

We will never accept global governance, third, because we love our Constitution and will never grant any other law supremacy over it. Like most peoples (Europeans are the exception), we will never allow transnational organizations to overrule our own laws, regulations and precedents. We think our Constitution is superior to the sloppy authority granted to, say, the International Criminal Court.

Fourth, we understand that these mushy international organizations liberate the barbaric and handcuff the civilized. Bodies like the U.N. can toss hapless resolutions at the Milosevics, the Saddams or the butchers of Darfur, but they can do nothing to restrain them. Meanwhile, the forces of decency can be paralyzed as they wait for "the international community."

Fifth, we know that when push comes to shove, all the grand talk about international norms is often just a cover for opposing the global elite's bêtes noires of the moment - usually the U.S. or Israel. We will never grant legitimacy to forums that are so often manipulated for partisan ends.

John Bolton is in a good position to make these and other points. He helped reverse the U.N.'s Zionism-is-racism resolution. He led the U.S. rejection of the International Criminal Court. Time and time again, he has pointed out that the U.N. can be an effective forum where nations can go to work together, but it can never be a legitimate supranational authority in its own right.

Sometimes it takes sharp elbows to assert independence. But this is certain: We will never be so seduced by vapid pieties about global cooperation that we'll join a system that is both unworkable and undemocratic.

Wow, never thought I'd see that in the New York Times. Anyway, I'd agree with the guy for the most part, but reason 3 of his argument doesn't really apply to all of the US. I believe there are those out there that would love a One World Government. Unfortunately for America, if ever that were to come, that would mean a whole lot of rights lost for us. That's what I think at least.

My general belief is that the U.N. should function something like a "diplomatic market", when nations can keep the lines of communication open with each other; and not a world government. Brooks has made some points that remind me why I'm against the latter.

The idea, or theory if you prefer, of the U.N. is nice, but I think the execution of a world forum will always turn to folly. Someone will always have an ax to grind, there will always be corruption somewhere in the ranks, there will be a lackadaisical or indecisive approach to certain "hot spots" while less deserving ones get all the attention. Plus the current incarnation of the U.N. has its fingers in just about everything. Wasn't their original intent to just prevent another massive, world war (I'll keep my theory that their real intent was to spread and promote socialism and communism to myself - but not really since I just said it here)? Perhaps they should abandon that idea and just stick to feeding kids and refugees.

As a side comment, that sounds a lot like US foreign policy.

The original point of the UN was simply to prevent war by providing nations a place to talk through international disputes. A charter has limited the organization's powers to purely international affairs, thus prohibiting the UN from getting involved in domestic national problems. I believe many countries would have never accepted membership in the UN if its scope and authority had not been limited.

I don't believe that the UN is trying to limit national democracy and what's important is that whatever new responsabilities the UN has are used for peacekeeping actions and for UN peacekeeping to thrive, there needs to be a sufficient level of consensus within the UN Security Council, not least among the permanent members.

For me it is a bit worrying that certain key UN member states (including the five permanent members of the Security Council and many NATO countries) have fallen back in their troop commitments to UN operations.

I hope that this notion that the UN is trying to limit national democracy does not in any way hinder members' commitment to helping countries in conflict or failed states.

With the Bush Administration veering towards a more aggressive and warlike position, the other UN member states can either follow where the hyper-power leads or they can make ever more determined efforts to seek to ensure that the more measured approach of multilateralism remains alive.