On the one hand the Bush White House is trying to restore law and order in Iraq, yet on the other, with its veto at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, it endorsed before the whole world Israel’s plans for the exile or murder of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
This is a political misjudgment of the highest order. It hands a million bullets to every one of America’s enemies and spits in the faces of its friends. Bush’s UN ambassador, John Negroponte, maintained that the resolution condemning Israel for its announced intention of assassinating or deporting Arafat was flawed. He advanced the specious argument that the proposition should also have included a condemnation of the attacks of Palestinian extremists. There can have been no one among the other 14 Security Council delegates whose governments did not agree that terrorist violence, from any quarter, is never to be condoned. But that was not the issue that was at stake.
One sovereign government was cold-bloodedly proposing to murder or evict of the head of another sovereign government, against every tenet of international law. That was what cried out for firm condemnation by the entire international community. To have tacked on denunciations of Palestinian terror groups would have been a dangerous irrelevance. It would have given the Sharon government room to wriggle out from under the burden of censure on it.
The consequence of the US veto is that with the exception of Israel, which has come to need the confusion of permanent conflict to survive, there are no winners. The Palestinians are yet again kicked back into despair, which will be exploited by the men of violence. The reputation of the UN has once again been sullied. On top of this, moderate Arab opinion has been betrayed and a propaganda victory handed to extremists.
Pity the ordinary Iraqis, whose only wish is the creation of a just and peaceful civil society. They saw their hopes dashed by Tuesday’s veto. The rage at Washington’s behavior will give Iraqi terrorists an excuse for further savagery and intimidation. It will also undermine any Iraqis working with the coalition forces in an attempt to restore stability to his country. The US veto has given the lords of misrule a feast.
By arming the terrorists with proof of US contempt for the Palestinians and international law, Bush is condemning his administration to a bloody and expensive fight in Iraq, the huge price of which the American voters are now questioning with increasing vigor. Whether the US stays in Iraq or cuts and runs, it is now doomed to an escalation the voters will not forgive. When John Negroponte raised his lone hand in veto at the Security Council, it is very likely that he also voted George W. Bush out of office.
