inside the glass house

UN dilemma: Go with US or be gone
NEW YORK-- The scene was reminiscent of a flashy court-room drama as US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented charts, satellite photographs and voice recordings of telephone intercepts to prove his faltering case for a war against Iraq.

But at the end of the unprecedented 80-minute presentation before the 15-member Security Council on Wednesday, there were very few converts who were willing to jump into the US war wagon.

Angry at the lack of UN support, President Bush gave a final ultimatum to the Security Council last week: either you give us a resolution endorsing a military attack or else we will go it alone.

If the US does launch a unilateral military attack without the blessings of the Security Council, it may well be the beginning of the end of the United Nations.

Every country in the world will have a legitimate right to cite it as a precedent to attack its neighbour -- and get away with it.

At least one right wing newspaper commentator says rather cynically that the only two choices before the US is to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and at the same time, reduce the UN to a political non-entity.

As things stand, both worse-case scenarios are possible as the US threatens to defy the Security Council if a second resolution is not forthcoming soon.

With an overwhelming majority of countries, including France, China, Russia and Germany, asking for more time for a diplomatic solution, the US has found itself isolated.

But being isolated is not something the US can come to terms within the context of its superpower brashness.

Still, knowing its capacity to browbeat and arm-twist member states, there is a faint chance it may get the resolution it wants provided it succeeds in convincing France, Russia and China to abstain on the vote -- rather than cast any negative vetoes killing the proposed resolution.

A vetoed resolution will be a political humiliation for a country that is also the largest single contributor to the UN budget.

As former President Bill Clinton brilliantly articulated his views on Iraq and North Korea during an appearance on the "Larry King Show" on CNN Thursday, he stood in sharp intellectual contrast to the present incumbent in the White House.

At this hour of need, the US cries out to a politician like Bill Clinton to get the country out of the ditch it has fallen into.

Rightly so, Clinton stressed the need for an international coalition before the US launches any attack on Iraq.

The US boasts it can generate support from about 20 countries, of which only about 10 or 12 would provide military support. But in a 191-member world body, a coalition of 20 is hardly representative of the world at large.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has a penchant for shooting his mouth off and antagonising American allies, has already dismissed Germany and France as part of "old Europe".

Both countries, holding seats in the Security Council, have expressed strong reservations about the war and are asking for more time for UN inspectors in their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Asked by a member of the House Armed Services Committee about the extent of international support for the US in the event of a war, Rumsfeld antagonised Germany once again when he lumped it alongside Libya and Cuba, two countries the US considers "terrorist states."

"And then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything," he told the committee last week. "I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are the ones that I have indicated won't help in any respect."

Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East expert at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, dismissed Powell's presentation as a "dog-and-pony show".

She said that US officials have admitted that some of their "evidence" comes from interrogation of detainees held incommunicado at Guantanamo Bay.

She said the Washington Post had quoted US officials suggesting that detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan, some of whom may now be in Guantanamo Bay, have been tortured or threatened with being sent to countries that routinely practise torture.

"Any information resulting from torture (or threat of torture) is not only illegally obtained but also of questionable veracity," she added.

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