IRAQ: Supposedly United, They Fell Before

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL, Apr 8 2003 (IPS) - "It is us today, it will be you tomorrow" – a small nation appeals to the world organisation created to keep peace. It is in vain.

The international organisation fails to act forcefully in the face of a resolute stand from a world power determined to act with or without the world body.

This was not Iraq, the United States and the United Nations in 2003. It was Ethiopia, Italy and the League of Nations in 1936. It was a nail in the coffin of the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations established after World War I.

Are there lessons to be learned from the League’s Italy versus Ethiopia experience? What will be the effect of the Iraq saga on the future of the United Nations?

The two episodes are being debated, but analogies go only so far.

Ethiopia was recognised then as a small hapless victim and, unlike Iraq, under no League resolution to disarm. Italy, unlike the United States now, was under the grip of a fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini who wanted Ethiopia because Italy’s spoils after World War I had been small compared to Britain and France.

"Italy received but a few crumbs from the rich colonial booty gathered by others," Mussolini said publicly, and demanded Ethiopia as "a small place in the sun." To him Ethiopia was "of primary importance to Italian security and civilisation" as a part of his dream for another Roman Empire.

The League imposed sanctions on Italy for its aggression on Ethiopia. But they were meek and excluded coal, oil or steel. France and Britain did no more than denounce Italy.

It took Italy seven months of grinding military moves to conquer and annex Ethiopia, despite its air power and reported use of chemical weapons. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s passionate plea to the League fell on deaf ears. Eight nations left the League in the next three years.

In the current mosaic, the UN stands challenged both by the United States and Iraq.

President Bush told the General Assembly in September that the world organisation would lose credibility of it failed to disarm Iraq. "The United Nations (must) show some backbone and resolve as we confront the true challenges of the 21st century,” he said. "Make no mistake about it, if we (the United States) have to deal with the problem, we’ll deal with it.”

Iraq, in turn, has portrayed itself as the first victim of a U.S. design for world domination.

Patrick G. Coy, associate professor at the Centre for Applied Conflict Management at Kent State University in the U.S. agrees with President Bush’s claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein put the credibility of the UN on the line, but adds: "It also is true that Bush’s ultimatum to the United Nations threatens its credibility over the long term. When the United Nations is susceptible to ultimatums by its most powerful member, it risks success in dealing authoritatively with all countries, large and small, influential and not."

He says "private, strong-arm tactics by the United States towards the United Nations are weakening the organisation’s ability to evade the irrelevancy Bush is purportedly concerned about."

As examples he cites U.S. pressure last April to oust Brazilian Jose Bustani as director-general of the 145-nation Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Bustani had refused to follow U.S. policy. Also, Robert Watson left as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change under pressure from Washington.

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, told IPS in an interview last September that she was "eased out" as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights under U.S. pressure. She had occasionally pointed the finger at the United States for violating human rights in pursuit of its war on terrorism.

The UN, unable to prevent the destruction of Iraq, is now seeking a role in its reconstruction for its own credibility. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the involvement of the UN in putting Iraq back together would bring "legitimacy which is necessary.."

France is also looking for a more active role for the UN. On the other hand, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice claims that it is natural for those who fought to play a leading role in the aftermath. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is portrayed as mediating in the middle.

The UN may achieve some successes. But so had the League. It guaranteed security of Albania (1921), rescued Austria from economic disaster, settled the division of Upper Silesia in Poland (1922), and prevented the outbreak of war in the Balkans between Greece and Bulgaria (1925).

The League, not unlike the United Nations, extended considerable aid to refugees; it helped suppress opium traffic; it did pioneering work in health surveys; it extended financial aid to needy states; and it furthered international cooperation in labour relations and many other fields.

But the world of realpolitik made itself felt. The League was forced to stand by powerlessly in the face of the French occupation of the Ruhr in Germany (1923) and Italy’s occupation of the Greek island Kérkira (1923). Failure to take action over the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in north-eastern China (1931) was a blow to the League’s prestige, followed by Japan’s withdrawal from the League (1933). The League also failed to stop the Chaco War (1932-35) between Bolivia and Paraguay.

Faced by threats to international peace from all sides – the Spanish civil war, Japan’s resumption of war against China (1937), and finally the appeasement of Adolf Hitler at Munich (1938), the League eventually collapsed, although it had its parting shot in expelling the Soviet Union for its attack on Finland in December 1939.

The biggest problem may have been that the League was practically stillborn. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, an architect of the League, was unable to persuade the U.S. Senate to support it.

Its successor has the United States not only as founding member, but also its host and largest contributor. But the war on Iraq might see it become the UN’s landlord.