A Lesson From Isis
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The world is being given an important lesson from ISIS’s confrontation with the “world community.” We are learning that there is no such thing as the world community, especially its peacekeeping organization, the United Nations. If there were ever a situation that cried out for the United Nations to act it would be this. Yet eyes would roll if anyone suggested we should look to the UN to deal with ISIS — followed by horselaughs. Everyone knows the UN is irrelevant to this crisis.
One might protest that the UN’s hands are tied because permanent members of the Security Council, most likely Russia and China, would use their veto power to block any proposed UN military intervention against ISIS. But that is the point. It is why the UN’s predecessor the League of Nations also proved ineffective. These international organizations are voluntary organizations, made up of sovereign nations, unlikely to agree on the identity of the unjust aggressor in any given conflict, and on whether it is worth the loss of their blood and treasure to stop the aggressor even if he can be identified.
This means we cannot count on the UN to deal with a conflict of serious proportions. UN peacekeepers with vastly superior military strength might be able to do some good keeping warring tribes in Africa from butchering each other. Facing up to an army like ISIS’s is another matter. The UN Security Council isn’t interested in that sort of conflict. That may be an unpleasant fact of life for some to ponder, but it is a fact nonetheless.
I realize that it is not only secular liberal one-worlders who champion the UN and the “world community.” More than one Pope has called for greater support for stopping unjust aggressors through international peacekeeping missions. It does not diminish the high-mindedness of Rome’s call for peace to point out that the UN is not likely to be able to fill that bill anytime soon.
This means that if we decide that ISIS is a threat to our national interests worthy of armed resistance — which is debatable, of course — we can’t rely on anyone else to do the fighting for us. In his campaign against George W. Bush, Barack Obama scored points by accusing Bush of “going it alone” and “cowboy diplomacy” in the world arena. In contrast, Obama promised he would work closely with the “world community” and our “international partners.” It seems fair to ask him now, as he confronts ISIS: Where are they? This may be a teachable moment for our president.
What about the “coalition of 60 nations” that White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest tells us about? Everyone knows it is not real. Come on: If a serious UN army made up of vast numbers of American, Russian, Arab, Turkish, and Chinese soldiers were moving across the desert against ISIS, the war would be over before another shot was fired. That scenario is exactly what the champions of the United Nations envisioned when they set it up. But it is not going to happen.
We must never forget that the two great international peacekeeping organizations in modern world history, the UN and the League of Nations, were formed by the victors after a war, victors caught up in the euphoria that comes from defeating the “villains” who caused the conflict. The euphoria led them to think that all that is necessary to preserve peace is for them to stay united in their determination to keep the defeated villains from disturbing the peace again. That euphoria proves to be short-lived.
The victors begin seeing each other as untrustworthy, even as threats. Witness the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. It becomes impossible for them to work together through their newly formed international organizations. A standoff results. The League of Nations would not unite to stop Hitler’s aggressions. The United Nations cannot unite to stop ISIS. These international organizations become glorified debating societies, full of pomp, short on muscle. It does no one any good to pretend otherwise.
This same problem would arise, by the way, if an effort were ever made to form the mercenary army against terrorism that television host Bill O’Reilly has been proposing of late. O’Reilly’s scheme relies upon volunteer professional soldiers doing the fighting, so that the nations of the world will not have to face the prospect of seeing their young men and women killed or maimed in an overseas war. The French have used their Foreign Legion for this purpose for over a century now.
That would solve the problem of where the military force would come from. But it would not solve the problem of who will decide to send them into action, and when. The French government decides when the Foreign Legion will deploy. Who will decide when to deploy O’Reilly’s mercenaries? Us? The Russians? The Chinese? The rest of the world would not go along with that proposal. Only when all three nations agree? We’re back at square one. They won’t agree.
The United Nations can theoretically accomplish some good. It can provide support for Third World countries faced with poverty, a lack of schools, and health-care issues (although the UN’s World Health Organization had to apologize publicly for its bungling of the Ebola crisis in Africa). But the sooner we give up on the notion that it can preserve the peace the better. Good intentions are not enough. Even well-meaning religious leaders need to keep that in mind. When serious threats to our national well-being are at stake, counting on the world community to deal with them is. . . . What’s the right word? Unrealistic? Naive? Childish?
None of the above should be taken as a call for the United Nations to be given more power to compel its member nations to raise armies to support UN decisions. That should go without saying. It would make the UN a world government, and a world government would become a world tyranny, under the control of a bloc of nations hostile to the United States. Anyone out there want Vladimir Putin and his allies deciding when and where American soldiers should be used to enforce the “peace”?
But there is little reason to fret over that scenario. If the members of the UN cannot agree to raise an army to stop ISIS, they are not likely to agree to surrender their national independence to a world government. A widespread recognition of that reality is a silver lining to the frustration we are experiencing in trying to deal with ISIS. Pious posturing about joining with the “world community” to promote peace is more than a waste of time. It can cast a fog over the necessary give-and-take on matters of life and death, such as how to deal with a terrorist army on the march.
