The Command Post Op-Ed Page

The U.N.'s Scandals of Omission May Be Its Worst

In a this column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Claudia Rosett, the journalist who did more than any other to expose oil-for-food, writes that North Korea could prove to be the most enduringly damning of all the U.N. scandals in the news today.

Such would-be refugees have been dying faceless, nameless and scarcely even remarked upon by the world community. But these were human beings. They had faces and names. From what we know of conditions in North Korean detention centers, it’s a good bet they were freezing, famished and quite possibly tortured in the hours before they were then murdered in public due to the combined and systematic state policies of China and North Korea.

Where is the U.N. in all this? Under the U.N. Refugee Convention—which Beijing has signed and the UNHCR, with its $1.1 billion budget, is supposed to administer—these North Koreans refugees had rights. The convention promised them not a return to their deaths, but at least safe transit through China to a place of asylum.

One hopes that the departure of Ruud Lubbers, a man apparently preoccupied with lower diversions, could effect some positive change. Two million North Koreans have already starved while their government barred aid workers from the hungriest regions of North Korea and squandered the nation’s budget on arms and luxuries for its elite. While China pitched thousands of North Korean refugees back into this furnace, Mr. Libbers and his U.N. High Commission for Refugees did nothing>/a>. The same syndrome was in evidence in the U.N.’s anemic response to Darfur.

What unites these nations? What function does their union of the unaccountable serve, beyond displacing those who would act on the principles it once espoused? There may indeed be a need for a body of nations that act collectively in defense of the world’s shared values. The lesson of the U.N. experiment is that no such body can be effective in their defense unless it holds its members to standards of conduct that reflect those values.

Levels of Aid, the UN, and Martin Luther

Cross-posted from AEBrain, the Blog.

From India Uncut :

One of their coordinators, Muthu Kumar, showed me a document all the team leaders have been given, the text of an email from their leader in Tamil Nadu, Balaji Sampath. The document lists three levels of relief work. I don’t have a copy of that document, but let me briefly paraphrase what those three levels are:

Level one : providing immediate emergency necessities like food, drinking water, medicine, shelter etc.

Level two : Building them huts and houses to live in and looking after their health needs.

Level three : Giving the affected people back their livelihood, which could involve buying boats for the fishermen who have lost everything, forming cooperatives so they can compete better in the markerplace etc.

The UN has been given a lot of stick lately by people on the ground, people actually helping rather than merely talking about it.

It’s my contention that the UN is completely useless at Level 1. And that’s by the very nature of the beast, not the fault of the bureaucrats. Even if they were all ept (as opposed to inept), and indifferent honest (as opposed to hopelessly corrupt), they’d face the same problems. The first is that the Secretary-General has no troops under his command. Now a reading of the original articles of the UN, in particular Article 7, Chapter 43, shows that this was not the original idea. The UN was set up with the intent that the UN should have a standing military force, and relying on the Veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council to keep it from being misused.

Personally, given the UN today, I’m thankful that not a single nation has given even a small part of its military force to the UN, to do as the UN desires. I wish it were otherwise, but wishes must give way to Reality.

All “UN” forces are ad-hoc, formed after a long diplomatic wrangle, and disbanded afterwards when the immediate need is thought to have passed.

This may under some circumstances be adequate when there’s months or years available to act. But when the emergency is acute, when minutes, not just hours matter, it’s too slow by several orders of magnitude. It takes the UN a week merely to organise the meeting to discuss the agenda for the meeting to discuss the crisis. This is unavoidable with the current setup.(All quotes unless otherwise attributed are from Diplomadic)

I can tell you, dear readers, that I am temporarily working in one of the countries that got slammed hard by the tsunami and while the UN effort might be in high gear, it must have its parking brake on. No sign of that effort here! Lots of bureaucrats flying in and out, but that’s about it.

Fortunately we have a “New World Order” where individual nations are capable of acting as quickly as the situation requires. Case in point : the “core group” of the USA, India, Japan and Australia. Multiple US task forces were diverted within hours or days of the magnitude of the disaster becoming apparent. RAAF personnel were recalled and organised to provide immediate aid within 24 hours, even before we knew how bad things were.

But the UN? Forget it. Individuals in charge of UNICEF strategic stockpiles of emergency supplies may release them from the warehouses, but they have no means to transport them to where they’re needed. Too often, the UN efforts are, well, more long-term:

To address the psycho-social needs of children throughout nearly a dozen countries devastated by the tsunami, selective in-service teacher training will be supported to equip teachers with specific methods and activities, UNICEF said.

While limited in their capacity and depth of the response to shock, teachers can still be trained to carryout activities which allow children, many of them orphaned, to share their feelings and to better cope with the aftermath of the disaster. In addition, teams of child counsellors will be trained and sent to schools.”

This is a worthy goal, and I disagree with many UN-bashers in saying that it’s important and vital work. But first let’s make sure there are some children left to go to these schools shall we?

We have US C-130s flying in and out of here dropping off heaps of supplies; US choppers arrive today; USAID is doing a knock-out job of marshalling and coordinating US and local resources to deliver real assistance to real people. The Aussies have planes and troops delivering stuff; even the Indians have goods on the way. The UN? Nowhere to be seen. OK, I‘m not being fair. Last night they played host to a big “coordination” meeting of donors to announce that the UNDP has another large “assessment and coordination team” team arriving. Our USAID guys, who’ve been working 18-20 hrs/day, came back furious from this meeting saying everybody would be dead if the delivery of aid waited for the UN to set up shop and begin “coordinating.”

Well-meaning but clueless Internationalists have even attacked the nations giving immediate aid, saying that they lack the “moral authority” to do so without UN sanction. This is Not Helpful. Neither is pretending that the UN is doing a lot in the short term, by cloaking the real contributors under a false blanket of UN Blue.

A colleague came back from a meeting held by the local UN representative yesterday and reported that the UN rep had said that while it was a good thing that the Australians and Americans were running the air ops into tsunami-wrecked Aceh, for cultural and political reasons, those Australians and Americans really “should go blue.” In other words, they should switch into UN uniforms and give up their national ones.

Again, this is Not Helpful when the people involved are sleeping rough, working all hours of the day and night, and saving lives.

OK, that’s Stage I covered. What about Stage II? Here, the UN has a role - it maintains strategic stockpiles of clothing, bedding, shelter and so on. When - or rather If - they are delivered to those who need them, rather than being allocated to cronies of the local ruling clique, or merely sold to Black Marketeers, then these have a major role to play. The UN’s record in this is mixed, at best. But still better than that of national governments, whose stockpiles tend to be geared to military rather than medium-term civilian needs. Distribution is best left to a (hopefully) rebuilt civilian infrastructure, or the remains of the initial surge relief effort provided by national government. It is at this stage that the first “blue helmets” and “white elephant” aircraft will appear.

Stage III - well, if the UN is involved too much, stage III never happens. “Temporary” refugee camps all too often become permanent, or at least last for decades. They eventually get wound up only after the inhabitants have all decided to pack up and leave of their own volition. The most extreme examples are the the Palestinian “Refugee camps” that are indistinguishable from 3rd-world cities and towns, with multi-story buildings, hotels, power stations and so on.

Throughout all this, many UN employees are working as hard as they can, within the constraints that bind them. The lower you get on the UN feeding chain, the more likely you are to find dedicated, hard-working people. Those that rise through the ranks tend to have much of their dedication ablated off, as in order to be successful, they have to make compromises, financial and increasingly moral ones, until at the top it’s rare to find anyone with more than a vestige of integrity. Those that do are swamped by the products of Nepotism and Political Cronyism, where a lucrative UN post is too often seen as a reward for an ex-Minister or Party Hack, or just the Maximum Leader’s Nephew.

A parallel that I’m continually reminded of is that of the Catholic Church is the Middle Ages, pre-Reformation. UN workers drive about in their air-conditioned SUVs whose cost represents untold wealth to the people they’re trying to help. But they have to, it’s the only transport they’re issued with. Similarly, they travel first-class, stay in 5-star hotels and so on, simply because “the dignity of the Church UN” demands it. If they mixed with the plebs, they’d get no respect from the temporal Princes, Potentates, and Presidents-for-Life that they have to deal with.

We need the equivalent of Martin Luther to nail his theses to the door of the UN building. Do we need a “Protestant” UN? I don’t know. But the current system isn’t working.

The Barrier

(Cross-posted from AEBrain, the Blog)

I confess I was moderately surprised when Australia voted not to censure Israel in the UN for putting up the protective barrier. I expected - or rather hoped - that we would abstain, but feared that we’d go along with the majority out of a misplaced respect for the International Court of Justice. I’m glad I was wrong.

The inimitable and inestimable Tim Blair has a rogue’s gallery of who voted Yes, and who voted No. In the comments section, you’ll also find the roll call of the absent and the abstentions.
So why did we do it? Here’s the Official Line :

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Australia does not approve of the barrier’s path but says the court was not the right place to raise the issue.

“We believe that taking this matter of the security barrier to the International Court of Justice was the wrong decision,” he said.

“The second thing is that Israel must find ways of defending itself against terrorists and it isn’t reasonable to tell the Israelis that they can’t erect a security barrier to protect the people of Israel from suicide homicide bombers.”

Mr Downer added: “I have always been opposed to this case being taken to the court of justice because the court of justice does not have the jurisdiction to make a determination on this matter.

“It can only give an advisory opinion and it’s created a political controversy surrounding the court of justice and I regret that.”

I happen to agree with him on every single point (and there are lots of points). Anyone with Internet access can see that while the number of attempted suicide bombings has risen exponentially, the number of successful ones has dropped to almost none. But there’s a bit more to it than that.

First, the Israeli Supreme Court found that parts of the Barrier caused undue hardship to local Palestinians : so the Israelis are already spending over$15 Million Aussie Dollars making the neccessary mods. There is already a functioning system for review and modification for the future (the barrier is less than 1/3 complete) to avoid un-neccessary injustice.

Secondly, and most contentiously, there’s the matter of the placement as a de-facto border between two states, Israel and Palestine, mainly on disputed territory. Here’s the Israeli view :

The former “Green Line” was the armistice line between Israel and Jordan during the years 1949-1967. It was not the final border between the countries which was to be determined in peace negotiations. The “Green Line” ceased to exist following the Arab threat to Israel’s existence in the spring of 1967 which led to the Six Day War in June of that year. The drafters of UN Security Council Resolution 242 in November 1967 recognized that the pre-June 1967 lines were not secure.

While the final border between Israel and the Palestinians has to be determined in negotiations, the route of the anti-terrorism fence is determined solely by the immediate and pressing need to save Israeli lives by preventing Palestinian terrorists from reaching the Israeli populations. Thus, the fence is being built wherever this can be achieved most effectively. To put it arbitrarily anywhere else, such as along the pre-June 1967 lines, would have nothing to do with security and, therefore, nothing to do with the purpose of the fence.

Although the Barrier (‘Fence’ as the Israelis call it, ‘Wall’ as the ICJ calls it - it’s 3% concrete, 97% wire) is inside the ‘Green Line’ for a few hundred metres, that’s less than 1%. The question is, have the Palestinians forfeited any rights to the ‘benefit of the doubt’? And have the Israelis earned it, regardless of their de-facto military superiority? I’d have to say, yes, and yes. Although the Barrier is outside the ‘Green Line’, it’s not far from it, it cuts through non-urban land, and is no huge Land Grab. Anyone else would have put it along the border with the bit of Palestine that was given to the Arabs, namely, Jordan. And should the Palestinians ever really make a sincere effort for Peace, then such a barrier would be redundant, and could be dispensed with. It’s likely it will become the de-facto border, but it’s not certain. That’s up to the Palestinians.

Thirdly, there’s a small matter of blatant hypocracy.

From the Monday Morning of Lebanon :

But in Kashmir itself, India is taking measures which, if they do not lead to war, are raising angry feelings in a sensitive spot. It is building a “wall of separation” to divide the Indian-controlled from the Pakistani-controlled parts of the territory.
An Indian army captain says that, when completed, the wall will protect his people from attacks by Muslim extremists.
Once the thousand-kilometer high-tech fence is finished, militants will no longer be able to infiltrate his side of the disputed territory and kill his soldiers and civilians, he says.
On the other side of the barrier, anguished Muslim villagers protest that it is taking their land and cutting them off from their loved ones.
As the World Court was about to rule on Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank, the arguments, so regularly rehearsed, certainly sounded familiar.

India voted “Yes” to condemn.

Then there’s the little matter of the Saudi-Yemen er, fence? From the Grauniad :

The head of Saudi Arabia’s border guard, Talal Anqawi, told an Arab newspaper last week that the barrier was being constructed inside Saudi territory but did not specify the exact location. He also dismissed comparisons with Israel’s West Bank barrier, which has sparked international condemnation.

“What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of screen … which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling,” he said. “It does not resemble a wall in any way.”

The Grauniad doesn’t say whether he was able to say it with a straight face, as the border between Yemen and Saudi has been the subject of contention (and several wars) since the two countries were founded. Saudi voted “Yes” to condemn, of course.

Finally there’s this little graphic, which I think on its own provides a full and complete justification. Although I would have preferred a less racist labelling (there’s a lot of Bedouin in the IDF, and it’s insulting to them), it’s the way that Hamas and Co think, so after some consideration, I’ve left it as the original artist intended.

I’d like to give credit to the artist, but I downloaded it ages ago, and can’t find the original site

Hidden Victims of Rwanda's Genocide

Ten years ago this month, Rwanda plunged into bloody genocidal slaughter. As the UN’s peacekeeping force - a mere 2500 strong - dithered, and the Western world turned a blind eye, forces arrayed themselves for slaughter.

For 100 days, the slaughter continued. Premeditated and preplanned, nearly a million men, women, and children were massacred. Frontline’s episode “The Triumph of Evil” and Ghosts of Rwanda remind us that when the world said “Never Again” after the Holocaust, it was a mere platitude. The West turned its back on dying Tutsis, massacred at a rate of thousands a day. For 100 days. This is the true face of genocide. Every man, woman, and child in Rwanda carried identification cards with their ethnic heritage emblazened upon them, a leftover from their days as a Belgian colony. These cards would be the yellow stars of this genocide. Those who were Tutsi were marked for death.

In addition to the slaughter, the Hutus carried out a rape campaign against Tutsi women. This carried with it a most deadly side effect: AIDS. While I wanted to write something substantive about this for this site, hoping to turn my phrase to good use, I can only stare at the words of the article linked below, a sick feeling gripping my stomache. Go read it, and do what you can to help. We stood silently by when the genocide took place. It’s time to speak up to help those we previously ignored.

Charity says 8,000 Rwanda rape survivors need AIDS drugs

Hutu ringleaders extorted [sic] militiamen to rape Tutsi women in a deliberate plan to use AIDS as a weapon that could go on killing long after they had murdered their other victims with clubs and machetes.

Massacres also led to HIV infection as survivors hidden under body piles had their wounds exposed to others’ blood.

According to SURF, about 8,000 female survivors are known to be HIV-positive but only 22 are receiving medication.

Vladimir "Do as I say, not as I do" Putin

THE HINDU: Putin rules out talks with Chechen rebels

Blaming Chechen leaders for the Moscow metro train blast that left about 40 people dead and over 120 injured, Russian President Vladimir Putin, today ruled out talks with the “terrorists”.

“Russia does not hold talks with the terrorists, it destroys them,” Putin declared at a Kremlin news conference.

Bookmark this story and keep it handy the next time the Israelis blow up a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader and the Russians balk about “heavy-handed tactics” at the United Nations.

If Putin knew where he could build a wall to keep out Chechen rebels, he’d build one for protection and two as a works program to keep the Russian Mafia busy.

The Roadmap: 2 Views

Kamil Zogby is not fully recovered yet, so Winds of Change.NET won't be able to run a full Regional Briefing today. Instead, I'm just going to point at 2 articles which represent different poles of prediction and thinking about the Roadmap and its impact on Israel's existence:

• Anne Bayesfsky's detailed piece, "The U.N. and the Assault on Israel's Legitimacy: Implications for the Roadmap". By accepting many of the Roadmap's key assumptions, she argues, Israel has advanced the process of its own delegitimization and eventual destruction. A searing, detailed indictment of the U.N., and a serious critique of a U.S. policy that she believes will deeply endanger Israel's existence if the process of reform in the region fails.

• Ze'ev Chafets, meanwhile, has a different take. Sharon is playing along with the Roadmap and handing over his cheque, believing that it will never be cashed because the Palestinians' cheque will bounce and then Israel will be given a free hand. Once it does, the next Intifadeh will begin - and this time it will be Israel's.

Which is true? Well, each has its own set of assumptions, and it's worth asking yourself what those are as you read them. Are there other views? Sure there are. If you've seen an analysis of the situation that's particularly good, please let us know.

Leave It Neutered

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Straw plan to boost UN security council
Britain is planning to propose reforms to the UN Security Council and presumably make it more relevant. I say leave it as is. Better yet, do away with it and the UN altogether. We've already exposed its corruption with Russia and France's concern for commerce over our security or the well-being of the Iraqi people.

A group of liberal democracies with membership criteria would do more to create legitimacy than an expansion of that amoral body. By using membership criteria we would do more to pull other countries towards freedom whereas the UN does nothing to move countries towards freedom. It fights for the status quo unless there is bloodshed. Even then it is highly selective as to whom it pursues as Iraq demonstrates.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is planning to put forward detailed proposals at the UN in the autumn for reform of the security council to try to mend some of the damage done by disagreements over the Iraq war.

The Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that it wants to see the 15-member security council expanded to 24 to provide a more realistic reflection of world opinion. The security council has remained unchanged since the formation of the UN at the end of the second world war.

But the British reform plan will run into trouble from various countries hostile to the new members being proposed by the Foreign Office. The government is also braced for opposition from hawks within the US administration who regard the security council as neutered by the Iraq row and are happy to leave it in that state.

The US state department is believed to be sympathetic to the British plan but the hawks in the Pentagon, which has a big say in US foreign policy, are hostile.

The British plan is for the five permanent members on the council - Britain, the US, Russia, China and France - to be expanded to 10.

The new countries Britain wants to see become permanent members are: Germany, Japan and India as well as one Latin American and one African country, yet to be decided.

The French and the UN in Africa

More on the people with whom we were engaged in delicate diplomacy for the past year, which would have found an elegant peaceful solution to the problem of Saddam Hussein, and upheld the authority of the UN, if only Bush wasn't such a warmongering cowboy who wrecked our international standing by his appalling lack of sophistication.

Not.

Israel's new ambassador to the UN

Meet Dan Gillerman, Israel's new UN ambassador.

The slow pace of reconstruction in Afganistan

These blog posts are chock full of facts, but they're pretty opinionated, so let's file them as op-eds.
Who's responsible for the slow pace of reconstruction of Afganistan?
How much money is the US contributing?

UN's poor record.

Re: UN's poor record
Date: 8 April 2003

Sir - As the likelihood of the UN leading an interim government in Iraq daily diminishes, those who wish to see rapid post-conflict reconstruction can only cheer. The performance of UN civil administrations in the Balkans did much to undermine the credibility and diminish the authority of the UN well before Security Council Resolution 1441 ever became the defining issue.

In the Balkans, the products of such civil administrations - the rule of law and developing economies - are pitifully absent. Instead, Bosnia and Kosovo have become net exporters of international crime. The civil administrations have excelled only in mediocrity.

As someone who has worn the blue beret and worked for the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, the UN Protection Force and UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, it saddens me that this is the case.

But not all of the UN is moribund. There is a role for the UN in Iraq as long as it is confined to the UN agencies. The World Food Programme, Unicef and UNHCR, for instance, are staffed by resourceful individuals who are task-orientated, have a history of delivery and can effectively lead the NGO response to the humanitarian challenges in Iraq. They alone should fly the blue flag.

As for the call for a Tokyo-style donor conference: why? This is not Afghanistan. In Iraq, reconstruction will be self-financing.

The oil resources can soon be converted into lucrative contracts and if an internationally assisted, Iraqi-led interim government places enough emphasis on local and regional companies winning the reconstruction contracts, this will facilitate recovery before a UN civil administration would even have passed its first ill-judged directive.

From:
Philip Watkins, Ardleigh, Essex

How to UN-win the war

The Weekly Standard's Stephen Schwartz gives chapter & verse on the UN's arrogance, corruption, criminality, lack of accountability, censorship, statism, hostility to capitalism, status quo-ism (i.e., no de-Ba'athification) and incompetence in Kosovo.

A must- read.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin: "We must stabilize Iraq and the region ... The United Nations is the only international organization that can give legitimacy to this."

Oh that's rich! Hahaha. Oh - stop it, Dominique! You're killing me!

Too late for you, mon cheri . . . my silly little poodle, Dominique. You (very stupidly) bet on the wrong horse. You laid your money on your lucrative trading partner - that brutal, despotic mass-murderer, Saddam Hussein. Now, Dominique, is the time for you to do something we silly Americans call "reaping what you sow."

The U.N.? Legitimacy? I see. Tell that to all the dead Rwandans, there Dom. The U.N. adds ILLEGITAMACY, mon cheri, if you must know. If it was up to the U.N., Hans Blix would still be playing hide-and-seek for officially non-existant WMD, and the Iraqi torture and rape rooms would still be full of suffering Iraqis (how dare they not see the oh-so-clever wisdom of the French way!).

If that's legitimacy, you silly poodle of a man, we want no part of it. Remember Vichy France, there Dom? (You probably thought Hitler was a swell, misunderstood guy - sheez). Um - you might like the idea of a Saddamy France - and a Saddamy Middle East - but the grown-ups here on the other side of the pond are already taking care of the problem, there babe.

In short, Dom, I think U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has the right answer . . .

* * *

In a fast-paced series of meetings with his NATO and European Union counterparts at the NATO headquarters here, Powell did not resolve differences over the nature of the U.N role after the fighting is done in Iraq.

"I think the coalition has to play the leading role," he told a closing news conference. "But that does not mean we have to shut others out. There will definitely be a United Nations role, but what the exact nature of that role will be remains to be seen."

Powell's comments clashed with the view in European capitals that the reconstruction of Iraq should be guided by the United Nations, not the United States or Britain, which went to war against Iraq on March 20.

* * *

My suggestion: little Dominique can serve as the Official Fool in the new Court of the democratically-elected President of Iraq. Keep that material coming, Dominique.

Via Fox News.

Powell: Coalition Should Take Lead in Postwar Iraq

Thursday, April 03, 2003

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Secretary of State Colin Powell told Washington's European allies and friends Thursday the United States -- not the United Nations -- must have the lead role in Iraq's postwar reconstruction.

In a fast-paced series of meetings with his NATO and European Union counterparts at the NATO headquarters here, Powell did not resolve differences over the nature of the U.N role after the fighting is done in Iraq.

"I think the coalition has to play the leading role," he told a closing news conference. "But that does not mean we have to shut others out. There will definitely be a United Nations role, but what the exact nature of that role will be remains to be seen."

Powell's comments clashed with the view in European capitals that the reconstruction of Iraq should be guided by the United Nations, not the United States or Britain, which went to war against Iraq on March 20.

"We must stabilize Iraq and the region," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. "The United Nations is the only international organization that can give legitimacy to this."

Powell played down the differences, calling his meetings consultative. "I'll report back (to President Bush) what I heard. We are still examining the proper role for the United Nations."

Powell and the Europeans did reach tentative agreement, however, that NATO should consider deploying peacekeepers in Iraq.

Powell said the United States made no formal request, but said, "I am pleased that there was a receptive attitude" to the suggestion which was first made last December.

At the time, the idea was shelved after French-led objections amid an increasingly acrimonious debate over Iraq that provoked one of the worst splits in alliance history.

"The ministers were ... more than willing to see whether other international organizations, like NATO, might have a role in helping" Iraq's reconstruction, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson told reporters.

He said that while there was no common view on any U.N role in postwar Iraq, Powell's talks were held "without acrimony."

Powell tried to counter European objections to American primacy in an interim military and administrative setup by holding out hope for a U.N. connection.

"This is the beginning of a discussion, the beginning of a dialogue," a senior U.S. official quoted Powell as telling the gathering of NATO and European Union foreign ministers.

Many European allies said it was an essential condition to assure a smooth transition to a postwar Iraq.

"I don't see how we could contribute to the reconstruction without the United Nations playing the key role," said Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel.

Diplomats suggested that France and its anti-war allies Germany and Belgium might accept a NATO peacekeeping operation that would build on the alliance's experiences in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said NATO ambassadors could begin an examination of an alliance peacekeeping role next week.

On the issue of Iraq's reconstruction, the Europeans want the United Nations to take a lead role while the United States plans to install an interim American administrator in Baghdad at least in the immediate aftermath of Saddam fall.

French President Jacques Chirac has opposed giving Britain and the United States a dominant role in rebuilding Iraq, arguing that would legitimize the war.

Powell has spoken of an international "chapeau" for the rebuilding period in which the United Nations would provide "an endorsement, a recognition for what's being done" to rebuild Iraq after Saddam is ousted.

The Bush administration concedes the United Nations has a role in providing humanitarian relief to Iraqi civilians, but the tougher issue is determining the U.N. role in running Iraq until new and democratically inclined politicians arise.

On another front where there was far more unity, Powell said the U.S. administration would move swiftly to implement a "nonnegotiable" roadmap for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. The main goal is the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"A roadmap is ready to be delivered" once the new Palestinian prime minister has formed his government, he said. "We have been waiting for a new Palestinian leadership to come forward and we are now seeing that happen."

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the EU presidency, spoke of the need to heal Europe's relations with Washington. "It is of utmost importance to restore -- I would even say reshape -- our trans-Atlantic relationship" that has been badly bruised by divisions over the Iraq war.

Powell was to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov later in Brussels.

Ivanov arrived here, keen to smooth Moscow's troubled relations with Washington and London. He told reporters the main task "now before the entire world community is to search together for an exit from the situation."

Alternate History

UN: Stay out of Iraq!

Delusions of Grandeur - Another Day at the UN

Mexico's UN ambassador sees the current mess as an opportunity for Mexico - which takes over as head of the UN security council next week.

He has also been making startlingly ambitious comments about the future of the UN, in a breach with Mexico's tradition of non-involvement in global affairs. "Mexico thinks it is necessary to revise and limit the power of veto," he said this week, adding that this would have to be in the context of a profound re-ordering of how the UN worked.

I think he is having delusions of grandeur.  Why would any of the five veto powers (especially France) agree to this?  And if even one disagrees, the requested change will simply be vetoed.  I doubt it will even come up for a vote.

This was part of a longer post I did on the Future of the UN