Your Opinion: The Future of the US in the UN

While browsing a multitude of political blogs and forums after yesterday’s UN General Assembly resolution on Israel and the subsequent comments of John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, I found that there are some very strong and very different opinions out there on the future of the United States in the UN.

Bolton yesterday -in a slightly roundabout way- suggested that the United Nations might not be “capable of playing a helpful role in the region”, referring to the Middle East, and said that anti-Israel bias is “a decades-old, systematic problem that transcends the whole panoply of the UN organizations and agencies.”

What really struck me, though, was when Bolton said that “In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States.”

Personally, I’m inclined to agree with Mr. Bolton on this. It seems to be that the UN is little more than a paper tiger that is doomed by its structure to be completely ineffective in dealing with complex situations. General Assembly resolutions are, by merit of not being binding, irrelevant. And the Security Council is, due to the veto-system, incapable of making decisions on many touchy subjects. Having to attain a majority of votes is usually such an arduous project that resolutions are watered down to a shadow of their original intentions and often achieve nothing.

The United Nations have done fine works through agencies such as UNESCO and UNICEF, but I feel that a lot must change before the UN is capable to responding clearly and decisively to crises. However, I am not convinced that it’s possible to reform the UN into the body I’d like it to be.

Meanwhile, it’s hard for me to see why the United States should put up with the United Nations. You can read more about my thoughts on the UN in this article. Meanwhile, what I really want to know is what your opinions are about the future of the US in the UN. I’ve included a handy poll below for you to vote on. I also enabled comments and invite you to let us know exactly how you feel about this issue.

I think that the United States should see if its possible to reform the UN into the effective body that Roosevelt and Churchill intended it to be. If not, I don’t see why the US should spend more money, time and effort on a heavily anti-American organization - the US leaving would create a massive shockwave and further question the relevance of the UN. Maybe then we can start our own, better version. But what do you think?

What should the United States do about the UN?