Bush's Stealth United Nations Policy

Abstract

been a hallmark of George W. Bush’s foreign policy in such strategic states as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Russia. Yet in the midst of this bleak landscape, there has been one success for Bush. Looking back on the almost eight years of his presidency, the one arena where Bush has shown some mastery in international affairs is, counter-intuitively, the most unlikely place on the planet—namely, the United Nations. For good or ill, Bush has attained more victories in that body than in any other forum or country—an intriguing fact, given that from the start of his White House service, Bush has treated the UN as the bete noire of global politics. Most Americans are unaware of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Bush administration and the United Nations. Indeed over the past eight years, the public clamor of angry voices and the harsh accusations which have passed between the administration and the UN seem to have drowned out much of what Bush and his diplomats have quietly been doing behind the scenes in that building on New York’s East River. Even today, the public impression of the Bush administration in its relations with the UN has been one of a broken diplomacy, in which each side has shown a hostility, indifference, or contempt toward the other. Much of this notion derives from the openly unilateralist policies of President Bush, from the refusal of the UN to back the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, from Congressional anger over the UN scandals like the Oil-for-Food program, and from a general antipathy, especially among the Republican Party’s ultra rightwing, toward any international organization that might erode U.S. sovereignty. However, the true tale turns out to be quite different from what would appear to be a profile of failure. In fact, in its nearly 92 months in the White House, the Bush administration has pursued a conservative but pragmatic mission at the United Nations under a stealth cover that has seen it carefully selecting its causes and focusing its energies, whether as a routine participant in the demarches at the UN Security Council; as a sponsor of numerous UN resolutions, sanctions, and other initiatives; as a regular contributor to the UN’s upkeep; or as an overseer of policies and appointments within the departments of the UN. This has been especially true with respect to American policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. For the most part, the United States has diligently pursued goals at the UN when it Stephen Schlesinger is an adjunct fellow at the Century Foundation and the former director of the World Policy Institute. He is the coauthor of Bitter Fruit about the U.S. coup in Guatemala, author of Act of Creation about the founding of the United Nations, and coeditor of Journals 1952–2000, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.