Does U.N. Really Face 'Moment of Truth'?

Feb. 24, 2003 — -- Show backbone. Be relevant. Prove you're more than talk. Don't be defied and mocked.

That's the Bush administration's urgent advice to the United Nations Security Council on Iraq — though to bipartisan critics, it sounds more like Dirty Harry than delicate diplomacy.

With such strong words, U.S. officials hope to convince the United Nations it faces "a moment of truth" and must sanction the use of force against Iraq or go the way of its ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations.

But paradoxically, if the United Nations doesn't end up being ignored or scorned, it could be heading into a period of unprecedented influence.

Most doubt the United Nations would collapse in failure, or that even the most strident unilateralists in the administration would want it to. But some say Bush has pushed the agency to something of a defining moment on Iraq, and even some people normally critical of Bush might applaud.

"That's been the great irony of this moment," said Rick Barton, a U.N. deputy high commissioner for refugees during the Clinton years, "that this administration, which has been inclined to be unilateral … and has these concerns with the United Nations, has given it the opportunity to have great relevance."

Added Chester Crocker, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration, "It's a moment of truth for everybody, but certainly it is for the U.N., too. … Are the really major issues of international security, war and peace, going to be managed through a process of consultation in a global body, or are they going to be managed by other units?"

At one time, the Cold War's U.S.-Soviet gridlock had left the United Nations an institution benignly ignored, and at times even reviled and scorned, by countries on the world's center stage. A low ebb came with America's angry refusal starting under President Reagan to pay U.N. dues.

But Gulf War-related events eventually led to increased U.N. influence. Ultimately, it flexed its muscles in trouble spots such as the Balkans, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.