Official discusses role of U.N.

The United States launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq in 2002 without the unanimous support or approval of the U.N. Security Council, an international governing body the United States helped to create in 1945.\nSince then, members of the U.S. government, media outlets and the American public have debated the exact role the United Nations should play in U.S. international affairs. Such concerns have sparked a national debate about the inclusion or exclusion of the United Nations in future U.S. diplomatic negotiations with the international community.\nA town hall-style meeting to discuss United Nations' reformation in a world of 21st century global security concerns was held Tuesday in the Whittenberger Auditorium in the Indiana Memorial Union. The open-forum discussion and public questioning session involved Bruce Rashkow, director of the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs; John Clark, senior fellow of International Security and Development for the Sagamore Institute; and David Fidler, IU professor of law and Ira C. Batman faculty fellow.\nThe panelists seemed to offer a variety of expert opinions about topics ranging from the reallocation of power from the United Nations to the United States to the "real" role of the United Nations within international nation-to-nation communications versus their "ideal" role. They also discussed the future role of the United Nations and United States in coping with ideological and political disputes throughout Asia. \n"What would the United States gain from giving up its unilateral power (to the United Nations)?" an audience member asked.\nFidler said the "United States doesn't give power." Instead, he said the questions that should be asked are: "How is U.S. power exercised" and "At point do we bring in the U.N.?"\nThe United States has a lack of strategic vision on how to the use the United Nations, Fidler said. He added that the United States should not adopt a "New World Order" or "Federation of States" approach to the United Nations in regard to worldwide government communications. \n"We do not want to go in that direction from a philosophical point of view," Fidler said. \nClark disagreed with Fidler on this point.\nClark said the question the United States should ask about international affairs is "How do you work with each other?"\nHe said tension between the United States and Europe has remained constant since the Cold War, specifically in regard to issues of exercising military power and the use of military force.\n"I believe the U.S. government and Europe have to make a compromise," he said.\nClark cited European and U.S. cooperation in dealing with Iran as a nuclear threat as proof of relationship mending.\nAll the panelists agreed that a U.N. international coalition is needed to effectively combat the worldwide spread of infectious diseases and to prevent nuclear proliferation.\nRashkow said the United Nations, if its commitment to democracy is more than empty rhetoric, needs to hold undemocratic countries accountable for continuing to thwart democratic rule. \nThe panelists agreed that U.N. economic, political and military pressure need to be applied to undemocratic nations that are preventing international democracy from spreading.\nThe speakers disagreed, however, on the role of the United Nations and the United States in stabilizing the military ambitions of Japan, China and the Koreas. The possible admittance of Japan into the U.N. Security Council and its recent rise of nationalism seemed to draw the most divisive difference of opinion from the panelists.\nChinese military action and the country's opposition to democracy should be a main concern, Fidler said. The discussion of admitting Japan is symbolic of real security concerns in Asia, primarily the rise of an undemocratic China, he said.\n-- Contact City & State Editor David A. Nosko at dnosko@indiana.edu.