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The reality of our world is that, like it or not, it is pluralistic. We may be the sole superpower although our perch may be more temporary than we now think, but we cannot accomplish unilaterally what we crave. And, for better or for worse, our best institutional means of action is the United Nations. So, we must stop the pointless and often ridiculous game of deprecating the United Nations and start making it useful.

The United Nations is what the Allies made it at the end of the Second World War and what we insist it be today. No more, no less. Of course it is weak because that is the way we have wanted it to be. We initially opposed giving the senior members of the Security Council the veto, as the Russians insisted, but it is we who have used the veto far more than the Russians. The UN is a tool, a device, a construct which we use when it fits our purposes, neglect if we choose and blame if we fail.

We need to help the organization, both the bureaucracy and the policy making organs (the Security Council and the General Assembly), mature. In doing so, of course, we must also mature in our attitude toward it. We must agree to cooperate even when we do not always approve of decisions taken there. That is the essence of living in any community, even the world community.

A key aspect of the United Nations is its peace keeping role. Preferring to use its own forces under its own command, America has generally opposed the United Nations being strong enough to do its job. This has been a costly mistake. Wars could have been avoided or brought to a more rapid end; hundreds of thousands of people would have escaped massacre; and our own security would have been enhanced had the United Nations been able to evolve a “muscular” peace keeping force. Moreover, a truly international force would be far more acceptable in most troubled areas than a solely American force or an American-dominated coalition. Distressed people would see it as less of a challenge to their nationhood, less as a lone “gunslinger” than a police force in which they also participate. But such a force must be effective. To be effective, it will have to be in-being, not just slapped together in emergencies. It must be managed by a sort of general staff operating under the Secretary General at the order of the Security Council. Creating such an organization does not require that the United States or any other country give up its military forces. These will continue to be required for defense and to assuage national sensibilities, but, hopefully, they will be scaled back.

It follows that at least some of America’s current massive outlay on armaments and military forces can safely and profitably be redirected to programs of public health, education, development and the preservation of the world’s environment. The $500 billion the United States spent on the Vietnam war and the comparable amount now being spent on Iraq were essentially wasted. Had even a small portion of those amounts been spent on useful ventures, the world in which we live would be more decent, more prosperous and less dangerous for us, for our children and for others. The best way to move in this direction is by using a strong United Nations supplemented where possible and appropriate by regional security organizations.

But, instead of thinking creatively and providing adequate funding for the United Nations, we have been attacking it with charges that, to say the least, are overblown. The furor over the 1990s Iraq “Oil-for-Food” program is the latest example. The program was set up, at the urging of the United States, by the Security Council where, of course, America has a veto over all decisions. To monitor the program, the Security Council, in turn, established the so-called 661 Committee, of which the United States was a prominent member. Now we are told that during this regime of control, some $6 billion worth of oil was smuggled out of Iraq and that the United Nations is to blame.

The facts are rather different. Most of the oil was shipped through the Persian Gulf. There, masquerading as a United Nations fleet, was the US Fifth Fleet (with a token number of other nations’ ships) under the command of successive American admirals. Fifth Fleet boarding parties inspected the oil tankers and let most of them (the ones responsible for most of the $6 billion worth of oil) pass. If anyone was at fault there, it was the United States government. The rest of the $6 billion was derived by the sale of oil that went out by truck to Jordan and Turkey which, for understandable (and I believe justified) reasons, were “allowed” by the United States to break the boycott. But we have chosen to blame the United Nations for a policy we instituted, oversaw and condoned. It is hard to disagree with the charge that “the only role it seems the United Sates expects the UN to play in the continuing drama of Iraq is that of scapegoat.”1 If it weren’t so detrimental to our own long-term interests, the charge would be a joke.

Another, more dramatic, example of “scapegoating” occurred in the Somali campaign during the Clinton administration. A fairly accurate account was given in the film Black Hawk Down. As the film makes clear, the American commander did not consult with or even inform the commander of the resident UN peacekeeping force before his troops attacked Mogadishu. But, having failed in the attack, he demanded to be rescued by the UN force. It did what it could. But, suddenly, the American operation became a UN operation and for this the UN was severely blamed.

Instead of engaging in such sophomoric antics, we need to get serious about the UN. We can hold it to higher standards only if we are honest with it, involve it in our actions and adequately fund it. It will never be perfect – what organization is? – but to adapt the American “Cowboy Philosopher” Will Rogers’s lampoon of the American congress, while it may be a terrible system, anything else would be worse. During my time in government – and since – we have criticized but never made any serious and sustained effort to improve. Doing so should be a high American policy priority.

1 Joy Gordon, “The UN is US: Exposing Saddam Hussein’s silent partner,” Harpers, December 2004.