The United Nations was long a political tool of the great powers, principally the United States, whose then President Harry Truman made sure that the new world organization was headquartered in New York. But the days of US domination are probably numbered and that number may be smaller than most analysts have thought.
Historically Democratic US presidents have always been better disposed toward the UN than Republicans. Though the row over Washington’s delayed or suspended contributions to various UN budgets flared up during the Clinton presidency, it was largely because of Republican legislators. Democrat Clinton himself was generally well disposed toward the UN and became a strong supporter of Kofi Annan for the job of United Nations Secretary-General.
However Annan and the UN no longer have friends in the White House. Many senior Republican legislators make little secret of their contempt for most of its operations. President Bush is unlikely to go out of his way to establish close relations with the secretary-general. This probably explains why Annan has come out of the UN’s corner fighting, in response to the Bush decision to repudiate the Kyoto Agreement on global warming and climate control. It is perhaps significant that Annan was not one of the first to condemn the White House over Kyoto. The secretary-general appears to have examined the US position with some care before rejecting it. It may further be significant that he has chosen to use the crucial question of economic growth as the foundation for his argument.
While the Bush White House maintains that Kyoto’s version of climate control would stifle economic growth in both the US and the rest of the world, Annan is saying that unless the climate issues are tackled, and tackled soon, the result will be dramatic economic slowdown as countries struggle, at huge expense, to cope with the consequences of a disaster that could have been averted. The secretary-general’s attack comes only three days after the US administration unveiled its national energy plan. Environmentalists argue the plan means that the former Texas governor whose presidential campaign was massively backed by the oil industry is giving the oil companies one last run at highly promising reserves such as that beneath a huge and formerly protected area of Alaska, before the power of the environmental case finally becomes overwhelmingly strong. The leash is being slipped from the energy industry to give power generators one last good four- year run before they are chained down, maybe for ever. If this analysis is true, it would almost seem to prove the environmental case. The rush to produce more energy, regardless of the environmental consequences, could very well be because there is a tacit acceptance that in the long run, the energy companies will not be allowed to act in an environmentally unfriendly fashion. President Bush of course has rejected outright the scientific arguments that underpinned the Koyoto decisions. But it is hard to see how he could have done anything less. Secretary-General Annan has for his part, eschewed the argument for caution in the face of the unknown but said firmly that he considers the science absolutely right. He is likely to be backed by the Europeans. Moscow and Beijing could join in out of sheer devilment. From this issue on, the UN may have its feet in the USA but its mind will have moved elsewhere.
