World peace — it’s the answer to every beauty pageant question. It’s the hope of most of the world’s citizens. However, all you have to do is turn on your TV to discover that we are living in perilous times.
Genocide continues in Darfur. Terrorist attacks occur all too frequently. Iraq has become an unending cycle of sectarian violence. Dated tensions between North Korea and South Korea could become nuclear tensions. The most threatening source of violence now comes from a radical Islamic president of Iran with nuclear ambitions.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the world was far from the international crisis we know today. Yet, after World War I, President Wilson (the only U.S. President to hold a Ph.D.) decided that a world-governing body was needed to promote peace and discuss international compromise. The isolationist United States chose not to join the League of Nations until it was reconstituted after the Second World War in 1945. Today, the United Nations, as it is now called, contains 192 member states – excluding Taiwan, Palestine, and Vatican City. Within the body, the UN Security Council includes five members with veto power. These five members are the past victors of WWII: China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Although the United Nations was founded on liberal idealism, many nations still believed it could be a practical agent for peace. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The United Nations has been largely a failed idea. Chief among its failures is its inability to resolve major world conflicts such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. UN leadership in the Middle East has not made much progress either, with Jimmy Carter and military tanks “solving” most of the chaos. Sadly, government scandal has also been a part of the United Nations’ history. In 2003, the Oil-for-Food program was discontinued due to bribery from Iraq. Even Secretary General Kofi Annan’s son was implicated for producing illegal contracts with a Swiss company.
If you’re not convinced that the United Nations needs reform by now, you must suffer from delusions.
I can give the UN credit when it comes to solving basic world problems. In the past decade the organization has sent mass funding to solve the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Children in several third-world countries now have food in their homes. Environmental sustainability and poverty have been slowly addressed in many regions.
Yet, where was the UN in Rwanda? Why hasn’t the UN demanded an end to female mutilation? Why are children still working in sweatshop factories in Asia and Central America? Failure, failure, failure!
At the turn of the 21st century, the future of the United Nations does not look hopeful. Nevertheless, the world requires cooperation and compromise as it never has before. We need peace to prosper. We need to confront challenges such as global warming and disease with a united front. We need the United Nations to prove itself.
Fortunately, the United Nations now has the opportunity to gain credibility in the world. This past week, President Ahmadinejad rejected UN Resolution 1696 calling for Iran to end its nuclear activities by the end of August. There is no doubt that Iran has become a threat to the entire Middle Eastern region and the western world. This country’s dangerous leader has already expressed doubt that the Holocaust ever occurred and has challenged President Bush to a live-television debate. Iran has frequently banned International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from viewing some nuclear facilities while hiding suspicious diagrams of nuclear warheads.
The time is now here for the United Nations to roll up its sleeves and seriously enforce its resolutions. The global community needs to unite against Iranian defiance with real punishments. Unlike the European Union, the UN must enact economic sanctions against Iran and force the country to end its nuclear programs immediately.
Talk is cheap. So is the United Nations until it proves itself by stopping Iran’s threat.
If Americans truly desire world peace, we must have idealistic hearts with realistic minds. World peace is not achievable by allowing countries to ignore human rights. World peace is not achievable by appeasing those who threaten the security of other nations.
E-mail Forest at [email protected]