The United Nations increasingly irrelevant

By Saurabh Muzumdar

Images have been beamed to our television sets informing us about the war that is on going between Israel and Hamas. While the situation has severe religious undertones as well as a history of strife and fighting, it highlights an important plight that the international community faces: The United Nations is becoming utterly irrelevant.

The U.N. was constituted on the basis of ensuring a fair level of peace and dialogue in the world. Its charter was adopted with the premise of bringing together different countries to confront global threats in an apt and able manner.

However, in the past few years, the U.N. has, time and again, shown how little power it truly possesses.

While international peacemaking forces ensure the existence of a fair level of law and order in the world's most unstable regions, the U.N. has failed in one big area: the use of dialogue in solving international conflicts.

It isn't abnormal to hear statements coming out of U.N. headquarters in New York condemning various atrocities taking place around the world, but these statements accomplish very little.

For instance, the Russian-Georgian conflict was met with stern levels of condemnation, as were the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Situations like these, where the U.N. is supposed to bring belligerents together at the dialogue table, more often alienate them. Over the course of the past half century, Israel has waged a war in order to fulfill its vision for a Jewish state. Their aggression has consistently been backed by the U.S. government, but perhaps more importantly, has not met any resolutions from the U.N.

Not that this would matter. People who follow international politics might remember what happened when the U.N. disagreed with the invasion of Iraq. The U.S. government disobeyed the U.N.'s resolution and did exactly what it wanted. These are the kinds of invasions that this organization was created to prevent.

With its latest round of attacks, Israel has alienated itself from the international community, though this alienation has done little to stop the violence. When asked about their controversial tactics, Israeli officials replied that their country is trying to protect itself.

While this may seem fallacious to some, to the Israelis it makes perfect sense. The U.N., meanwhile, has provided little in the way of direction for the region. The Israelis, who live surrounded by enemies who despise their very existence, probably know a lot more about the situation than outsiders do.

A scenario like this deserves a fair amount of mediation -- something the U.N. should be doling out -- in the pursuit of peace.

This situation has polarized nations, religions and agendas by creating a pro-Israel bloc and an anti-Israel one. Israel, while isolating itself diplomatically, has managed to cultivate a certain sense of intimidation, ensuring a level of security that no amount of dialogue or intervention from the U.N. could have guaranteed.

In many ways, India is the antithesis of Israel. Time and again, it has been provoked to engage in battle, and for the most part, has left the battle to be fought with words, dialogue and treaties.

However, this more responsible stand has left India with serious security loopholes.

The most recent example involves the atrocious terrorist attacks in India's commercial capital, Mumbai. All evidence points to the attack being planned in Pakistan and being performed by Pakistani citizens.

However, when confronted with this evidence, Pakistan has turned a blind eye. Pakistani officials recently claimed that the attack was planned in Europe by what they called common enemies to both countries.

All the while, India has down played the chances of attacking Pakistan and has instead vowed to win over the international community with its evidence in order to put external pressure on Pakistan to act. This is the more responsible way of doing things, but it begs the question, is it the most effective way of working things out?

With no international accountability, attacks will continue to escalate, especially as terrorism becomes a bigger issue. The U.N. was created to inculcate a level of international accountability, and it has failed at that, leaving skeptics to wonder about its functionality at a macro level.

In many eyes, the U.N. is a puppet of the U.S. government. This assumption has lead to a fair amount of suspicion with regard to its agenda and resolutions. It is in the interest of the U.S. to ensure that the U.N. has real power. The Obama administration should recognize this and work with leaders around the world to make a more competent and efficient U.N. This would give the U.S. more time and resources to spend internally and less self-given pressure to clean up the world.

A stronger U.N. would be a fairer and more effective marshalling organization, thus enabling them to focus on the bigger issues that plague our world.

Saurabh Muzumdar is a junior economics and finance major and a scene writer for The Santa Clara.