United Nations | Council on Foreign Relations

The Prime Minister discusses partnership between Pakistan and the United States, and efforts to establish peace, security, and prosperity in the region.

Event with Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar Sep 21, 2023

Rwanda

The Paradox of Rwanda's Paul Kagame

President Paul Kagame, along with many other chiefs of state, will be visiting New York for the opening week of the United Nations General Assembly. President Trump is scheduled to host African heads of state, including Kagame, for a dinner. For Africans and others, Kagame is somewhat of a paradox. He has been an intelligence operative, a warlord, and, following the Rwandan genocide, a vice president and president. He and his government have pursued policies that have led to a remarkable transformation of Rwanda from “a Third world backwater into a prospective middle-income country.” Conversely, his intervention in the Congo has fostered civil war, he has little toleration for domestic political opposition, and there are credible allegations that he intimidates his opponents and, in some cases, has them assassinated. For example, in the recently concluded Rwandan elections, opposition candidates complained of harassment and intimidation by the security services. One candidate, Diane Shima Rwigara, has claimed continued harassment even after the election, along with her family, on charges of forging signatures and tax evasion. Obadiah Mailafia, a deputy governor of the Nigeria Central Bank and chief of staff of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, explores the Kagame paradox in an article he wrote for a Nigerian newspaper. It is well worth reading, and provides an important African perspective on the leader of Rwanda. He opens his balanced treatment of Kagame by quoting Kenyan political scientists Ali Mazrui’s characterization of Ghana’s liberation leader Kwame Nkrumah as a “Leninist Tsar,” and using it to sum-up the Kagame paradox. Kagame is also sometimes compared to Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore into a first-world country through authoritarian, non-democratic means over his three decades in power. Kagame’s methods, however, are cruder than Lee’s. It also remains to be seen whether Kagame’s transformation can last, or whether there will be a renewed round of ethnic conflict. For many foreign observers, there is much to be said for Kagame and Lee, and the current dysfunctionality of governance in Washington makes attractive an authoritarian style of government that “gets things done,” and “solves problems.” A difficulty, however, is that democratic states have a long history of self-correction; authoritarian states do not.

Blog Post by John Campbell September 15, 2017 Africa in Transition
United Nations

Trump and Guterres: A Diplomatic Odd Couple

Coauthored with Megan Roberts, associate director of the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. When Donald Trump takes the podium at the United Nations on September 19, one bet seems safe. Like umpteen U.S. presidents before him, he will insist that the United Nations reform itself. But will he fare any better than his predecessors, who saw their best laid plans sink into the bureaucratic quicksand and diplomatic muck of UN headquarters? Read the full op-ed here.

Blog Post by Stewart M. Patrick and Guest Blogger for the Internationalist September 15, 2017 The Internationalist
Global

The World Next Week: September 14, 2017

The world comes to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

Podcast with Robert McMahon and Stewart M. Patrick September 14, 2017 The World Next Week

United Nations

Thug Life: Why is Donald Trump So Cozy with Dictators?

In an op-ed recently published in The Hill, I examine President Donald J. Trump’s embrace of foreign strongmen. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps. Donald Trump’s strange affinity for strongmen reveals an authoritarian temperament impatient with democratic niceties. It may also explain why the president has abandoned our nation’s long, bipartisan tradition of promoting democracy and human rights. Fortunately, for the cause of global freedom, the president’s orientation is deeply un-American and thus unsustainable. Read the full op-ed here.

Blog Post by Stewart M. Patrick September 12, 2017 The Internationalist
United Nations

Echoes of American History as Trump Heads to United Nations

In an op-ed recently published in The Hill, I examine what to expect from President Donald J. Trump’s first UN General Assembly address and how his mistrust of international organizations echoes earlier American isolationists. On September 19, President Trump will deliver his first address to the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly. It will be a curious spectacle, revealing how capricious American politics can be. After eight years of one of the most multilaterally-inclined presidents in U.S. history, a bemused world will host the most nationalist-minded American leader in generations. Read the full op-ed here.

Blog Post by Stewart M. Patrick September 8, 2017 The Internationalist
Global Governance

A Sputnik Moment for Artificial Intelligence Geopolitics

The following is a guest post by Kyle Evanoff, research associate, international economics and U.S. foreign policy, and Megan Roberts, associate director of the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Whoever assumes leadership in artificial intelligence (AI) will rule the world. At least, that was Vladimir Putin’s message to Russian students returning to school last week. Putin mused that drone battles might one day determine the outcome of wars, and that the losing side might surrender upon the destruction of their final autonomous combatant. No single entity, he warned, must be permitted to gain a monopoly on AI. The Russian president joins a swelling global chorus worried about AI’s geopolitical implications. Last month, SpaceX and Tesla head Elon Musk, along with 115 other leaders in AI and robotics, warned in an open letter to the United Nations that lethal autonomous weapons systems could “permit armed conflict to be fought at a greater scale than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend.” The letter implored the high contracting parties to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a set of protocols restricting or banning the use of inhumane weapons, “to find a way to protect us all from these dangers.” Musk and his cosigners were responding to the cancellation of the first meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). Last December, eighty-nine CCW states parties agreed to establish the expert group to begin formal talks on a LAWS protocol. They scheduled two sessions for 2017—one in August and one in November. The first fell through after numerous CCW members failed to meet their financial obligations. Although the November meeting is still scheduled, experts worry that further delay could undermine international agreement, as advances in the relevant technologies outpace global regulations. The world confronts a tipping point in its efforts to ensure that AI breakthroughs enhance rather than threaten humanity’s well-being. To date, international efforts to address AI’s potential implications have been limited and reactive, despite the technologies’ immense transformative potential. If the lackadaisical response continues, the yawning gap between the frontiers of technology and the mechanisms of global governance will only widen. In the few instances in which multilateral institutions have focused on AI, they have done so at the urging of private or civil society actors. The first formal discussions on autonomous weapons, for instance, followed sustained activism by groups like the International Committee for Robot Arms Control and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The X-Prize Foundation, a Silicon Valley philanthropy, likewise partnered with the UN’s International Telecommunications Union to organize June’s AI for Good Global Summit, which examined how emerging technologies can advance the Sustainable Development Goals. (Far less common have been independent multilateral initiatives like the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, launched by the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute.) To ensure that AI works for good, governments must cooperate in its development and deployment. Two areas ripe for deeper collaboration are the global environment and global health. Already, researchers are using machine learning to predict deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. AI has also yielded more efficient ways to diagnose and treat malaria. Greater analytic capacity would likely lead to similar results for other diseases, and might reduce harms from pandemics like Ebola and Zika Virus. At the same time, the dual-use nature of AI means that technological advances present risks as well as benefits—and governments need to work together to tamp down the attendant dynamics of insecurity and vulnerability. Autonomous weapons are a prime example. In recent years, militaries—led by China and the United States—have spent billions of dollars developing LAWS, in hopes of gaining or denying to rivals tactical and strategic advantages. This raises the specter of new arms races, particularly since AI can amplify cyberwarfare and disinformation operations. As computing costs decrease and algorithmic literacy rises, more actors—state and nonstate alike—will gain access to AI and its attendant capabilities. Adoption and innovation will alter power dynamics among nation-states—and between states and individuals, to say nothing of the role of other actors such as large corporations. AI will blur distinctions between cyber and physical space and intensify divisions between the digital haves and have-nots. Beyond increasing the potential for conflict, trends in AI raise tricky questions of fairness, accountability, and transparency. Ensuring that machines serve the interests of humanity as a whole will require a multistakeholder approach that considers (even if it cannot always accommodate) the diverse ethical, cultural, and spiritual values found within any cosmopolitan society. Given the enormous transnational opportunities and risks that AI presents, countries need multilateral rules of the road. Negotiating these is urgent, as states already possess different expectations about international limits on the uses of AI. China, for instance, recently released a national plan to integrate AI into all aspects of society, drawing on vast reams of citizen data to power national AI advances. Regulators and the private sector in Europe, meanwhile, are poised for a showdown over AI and privacy rights. To date, the Trump administration has paid little attention to how AI is likely to affect Americans—or the world writ large. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has cavalierly dismissed concerns that automation will displace U.S. workers; the Office of Science and Technology Policy lies in shambles; and the State Department’s science envoy recently resigned while calling for the president’s impeachment. Given his distrust of multilateral entanglements—and the natural temptation for the United States to lock in its early lead in autonomous weapons—President Trump is unlikely to champion global governance of AI anytime soon. Given the detachment of the Trump administration, the U.S. Congress has a critical role to play in setting a national AI agenda and advocating multilateral regulation of new technologies. Legislators should adopt a balanced approach, recognizing the potential of these new technologies to contribute to the global good and the unprecedented security challenges they pose. Congress’s goal should be to adopt flexible national regulations and promote a global regime that can adapt to innovations as they occur. Putin’s remarks should serve as a Sputnik moment. AI must now factor into the geopolitical calculus. Inaction is no longer an option.

Blog Post by Guest Blogger for the Internationalist September 7, 2017 The Internationalist
United Nations

Welcome to Nikki Haley's era of American diplomacy

In an op-ed recently published in The Hill, I review U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley's tenure thus far, and how she is shaping U.S. foreign policy. As the Trump spectacle enters its eighth month, it is the rare senior administration official whose reputation remains intact, much less enhanced. The brightest remaining star may be Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. As chaos engulfs the White House and the State Department descends into irrelevance, the former South Carolina governor has emerged as a vigorous, independent voice in U.S. foreign policy, burnishing her credentials within the Republican Party. Read the full op-ed here.

Blog Post by Stewart M. Patrick August 24, 2017 The Internationalist
Energy and Environment

The World Next Week: August 10, 2017

The International Energy Agency releases its report on the oil market, and the UN Security Council discusses the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Podcast with Robert McMahon and Varun Sivaram August 10, 2017 The World Next Week
Cybersecurity

The Development of Cyber Norms at the United Nations Ends in Deadlock. Now What?

The prospects of developing norms of state behavior in cyberspace have been looking positively bleak recently. The Lazarus Group, which appears to have ties to North Korea, is suspected of being behind the WannaCry ransomware attacks that spread to 150 countries and hobbled the UK’s National Health Service. Russian hackers have been named as the culprits in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and are suspected of being responsible for blackouts in Kiev in 2015 and 2016. This week’s attack, Petya/NotPetyta, first looked like a new version of ransomware, but now seems designed for disruption and destruction. The attack appears to have originated in Ukraine, on the day before a holiday marking the 1996 adoption of that country’s first constitution, so early suspicion is that Moscow is behind the attacks, though this is still highly speculative (Russia itself has also suffered from Petya). Despite the proliferation of state-backed attacks, for a brief window, there did seem to be some forward movement on cyber norms. This week China and Canada agreed not to conduct cyber espionage for commercial gain against each other. Beijing has now signed similar agreements with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and the G-7 and G-20. In 2013, a group of government experts (GGE) at the UN agreed that international law, and especially the UN Charter, applies to state activity cyberspace. In 2015, the same group agreed to four peacetime norms promoted by the United States: states should not interfere with each other’s critical infrastructure; they should not target each other’s computer emergency response teams; they should assist other nations investigating cyberattacks; and they are responsible for actions that originate from their territory. That process seems to have reached a dead end. Last week, Michelle Markoff, deputy coordinator for cyber issues in the State Department published an explanation of the U.S. position at the end of the 2016-2017 GGE process. Markoff’s frustration is palpable, as she writes the current “report falls short of our mandate and doesn’t meets the standard that the previous GGEs have set for us.” The sticking point is the application of international law. The United States wanted to use the report to begin explaining exactly how international law applies in cyberspace, especially in the areas of the exercise of the inherent right of self-defense and the law of state responsibility, including countermeasures. Other participants argued that it was too early in the development of cyberspace to have such deliberations, and would in themselves be destabilizing. They would be “incompatible with the messages the Group should be sending regarding the peaceful settlement of disputes and conflict prevention.” Markoff does not call out the obstructionist states by name, but it is safe to assume China and Russia were among them. Beijing has never liked the idea that international law applies to cyberspace, and began walking back the 2013 report almost as soon as the ink was dry. Chinese officials have consistently stressed the UN Charter and the importance of sovereignty without mentioning the rest of international law. During the 2015 meeting of the UN group, China’s representative proposed taking out all references to international law in the upcoming report. In the wake of the DNC hack, Moscow would certainly not support discussions about countermeasures, which might cover U.S. reprisals for hacking and information operations. The pessimist would argue that this was a fool’s errand from the beginning. But if this is the end of the GGE process, where to next? Within the U.S. government, there has been considerable debate on the best way to develop cyber norms. One side argues that it is best to build norms with U.S. adversaries first to set the ground rules with those most likely to challenge U.S. interests. The other side argues that it is best to build a coalition of norm adherents—“good guys” in the words of the cybersecurity coordinator at the State Department—that would help build cooperative responses and act as a deterrent. With the deadlock of the UN process, White House Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert seems to be signalling that the United States is going to put less emphasis norm building with adversaries and spend more time working with the good guys, calling out bad behavior, and, eventually, hopefully, imposing costs for disruptions. Correction: A previous version of this post associated countermeasures with the law of self-defense. It is in fact associated with the law of state responsibility. Thank you to the lawyers who pointed this out.

Blog Post by Adam Segal June 29, 2017 Net Politics
Peacekeeping

UN Peacekeeping: Where Are All the Women?

The following is a guest post by Megan Roberts, associate director of the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Next week Antonio Guterres will mark six months in what has been called “the most impossible job on earth,” the position of UN secretary-general. His tenure thus far has lived up to that billing: more than twenty million people are on the verge of famine, UN peacekeepers and investigators have been ambushed and killed in several missions, and the war in Syria grinds on, nearly half a million deaths later. Meanwhile, Guterres has sought with mixed success to build a relationship with Nikki Haley, President Donald J. Trump’s UN envoy, at a time of historic turbulence between the United Nations and its host and (for now) largest donor. Upon arriving in Turtle Bay, Haley’s eyes turned quickly to reform of UN peacekeeping, its flagship and most costly enterprise. Although the president’s proposed budget recommends cutting more than one billion dollars from the U.S. peacekeeping bill, Haley claims she’s not interested in a “slash and burn” approach. She simply wants “better and smarter” missions. If so, one place that she and Guterres could find common cause is in increasing the number of women serving in UN peace operations. Accumulating evidence demonstrates the unique role that women play in conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding. Not only can women perform the same roles as men, they can also deliver results that their male counterparts cannot. This is one conclusion from a recent Council on Foreign Relations discussion paper, How Women’s Participation in Conflict Prevention Advances U.S. Interests. To begin with, women peacekeepers help missions build stronger relationships with communities and gain more access to information than all-male contingents can deliver. They serve as role models, inspiring women in host countries to enter the security services themselves. Increasing the number of women in UN missions is also critical to ending a scourge of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeeping forces that causes tremendous suffering for its victims and diminishes the credibility UN peace operations globally. Despite these advantages, women comprise a meager proportion peacekeeping forces—less than 4 percent of soldiers and 10 percent of police deployed to UN missions. And the pace of change is achingly slow: ten years ago the comparable figures were 2 and 6 percent respectively. Women make up a greater proportion of the UN’s deployed civilian staff, though at 22 percent, they are still underrepresented, particularly at senior levels. The United Nations has repeatedly failed to meet its own pledges to achieve gender parity. The issue came to the fore in last year’s race to become the next secretary, when candidates pledged to increase representation of women throughout the world body. Although the outcome disappointed those who had hoped for the first female secretary-general, Gutteres himself won plaudits by quickly appointing three women to important positions, including Amina Mohammed of Nigeria as his deputy. Further, he pledged to appoint equal numbers of women and men to senior positions and committed to achieving gender parity in senior appointments by 2021. Work by the Center on International Cooperation suggests he is living up to his pledges. Guterres also issued a global call for nominations for candidates to lead peace operations, strongly encouraging member states to put forward women. Of course, righting the gender imbalance will require more. To that end, Guterres appointed a gender parity task force, which is set to deliver its recommendations to the UN General Assembly this fall. And last week, the UN’s Department of Field Support (DFS) re-opened the Senior Women Talent Pipeline, an initiative to identify and recruit qualified senior-level women to apply for director-level positions in missions and to build a larger pool of female leaders within the United Nations. Although currently limited to women with fifteen or more years of experience, the next phase of the pipeline will expand to include midcareer women. When DFS first opened the pipeline in 2014, 3,000 women applied, 150 of whom were accepted. Although these steps on the civilian side are important, the vast majority of peacekeepers are uniformed troops and police. And on this score, the UN’s performance remains unimpressive. The small numbers of female peacekeepers is not simply a function of the low proportion of women in national armed forces. At last year’s peacekeeping ministerial in London, member states pledged to do better. Canada, which hosts this year’s ministerial in November, has included gender as one of the meeting’s focus areas, consistent with the new feminist foreign aid policy the nation has just unveiled. Experience shows that targeted programs by major UN member states can make a difference. Since 2005, the U.S. Global Peace Operations Initiative has trained more than 6,500 female peacekeepers from other countries, increasing the number of women that partner countries now deploy. To build momentum, the United Nations may want to create incentives for troop contributing countries, including offering a premium to those that provide female peacekeepers. To reach its full potential, however, any gender rebalancing must be accompanied by broader changes to the culture of UN peacekeeping (as detailed by Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley in Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping), so that the women brought into missions have true power to effect changes on the ground. Nikki Haley is right to demand better performance from UN peacekeeping. Several large-scale missions are in crisis, threatening to undermine faith in the entire enterprise. These shortcomings will not be helped by drastic cuts in the number of blue helmets deployed globally. If Haley is truly interested in “better and smarter” peacekeeping, the place to begin is by increasing the number of women serving in all roles in those missions.

Blog Post by Guest Blogger for the Internationalist June 20, 2017 The Internationalist
Oceans and Seas

Trump’s Climate Pull-Out Imperils the World’s Oceans

Though the Paris Agreement included only one reference to oceans, the link between global warming and ocean health makes President Trump’s renunciation of the Paris agreement appear even more ignorant and indefensible.

Blog Post by Stewart M. Patrick June 6, 2017 The Internationalist
Nigeria

International Inaction and Famine in the Lake Chad Basin

Peter Lundberg, United Nations (UN) Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, stated on April 25 that the aid organizations working in northeast Nigeria will run out of cash by June if pledges made by the international donors at a February conference in Oslo are not paid. The UN Office for the Coordinaton for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 4.7 million people in Nigeria are in need of food for survival, many of whom are victims of Boko Haram. It also projects that some seven million people are in need of multiple forms of humanitarian assistance. The UN estimates that 43,800 are already experiencing famine. Currently the World Food Programme (WFP) is providing rations to 1.3 million people a month, according to Lundberg. Separate from Lundberg’s comments, the WFP said that its funds would run out within weeks, according to Reuters. At Oslo, international donors pledged $457 million toward the $1.5 billion the UN estimates it needs to address the humanitarian disaster in the Lake Chad Basin. However, Lundgren reports that in Nigeria aid agencies have received only 19 percent of the money asked for, in Cameroon agencies have received 23 percent, in Chad 4 percent, and in Niger 47 percent. Due to the size of its population, Nigeria has by far the greatest number of people facing potential starvation. During the conference, donors pledged only about a third of the money the UN estimates is required to meet the Lake Chad humanitarian disaster, while the United States pledged no new money at all. With respect to pledges, slow payment is an old song, often reflecting national bureaucratic and other requirements. The UN number of 4.7 million in Nigeria needing rations to survive is higher than the more frequently cited estimate of 2.5 million (a figure in reference to those internally displaced by Boko Haram). However, given the destruction of northeast Nigeria, and the depths of its poverty even in the best of times, such statistics seem credible. The UN notes that it is unable to reach some 700,000 because of ongoing Boko Haram activities. It remains to be seen when or if the American public will be galvanized by the famine, and whether it will demand greater proactivity from its federal government with regards to the crises.

Blog Post by John Campbell April 28, 2017 Africa in Transition
Global

The World Next Week: April 26, 2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Russia, U.S. President Donald J. Trump marks one hundred days in office, and the UN observes World Press Freedom Day.

Podcast with James M. Lindsay and Robert McMahon April 26, 2017 The World Next Week
Israel

What Happens When UN Security Council Resolutions are Ignored?

What happens when UN Security Council resolutions are ignored? That depends, really—on whether you are any of 192 other members of the United Nations, or are Israel. Defenders of Israel often claim that it is treated differently by the United Nations from any other nation. That claim is accurate, and a brief look at Lebanon offers some proof. It continues to violate Security Council resolutions, year after year—but no one complains, and no one ever argues that Lebanon must be punished with boycotts or prosecutions for doing so. In fact they are often congratulated for their defiance. The United Nations Security Council has been saying for decades that the Government of Lebanon must exercise control of its territory. Resolution 1559 of 2004 “Calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias” and “Supports the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory.” By “Lebanese militias” the UN was referring to Hezbollah, but dared not speak its name. In any event, the Government of Lebanon did not comply. Resolution 1583 was adopted unanimously in 2005 and in it the Security Council Reiterates its strong support for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized boundaries and under the sole and exclusive authority of the Government of Lebanon; Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to fully extend and exercise its sole and effective authority throughout the south, including through the deployment of sufficient numbers of Lebanese armed and security forces, to ensure a calm environment throughout the area, including along the Blue Line, and to exert control over the use of force on its territory and from it…. As the French ambassador said about that resolution when it was adopted, “in keeping with the present demands of the United Nations, Lebanon must extend its authority throughout the south, in particular, by expanding and deploying its forces and by disarming the militias.” But the Government of Lebanon did not comply. Resolution 1701 of 2006, adopted to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Welcomes the efforts of the Lebanese Prime Minister and the commitment of the Government of Lebanon…to extend its authority over its territory, through its own legitimate armed forces, such that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon…. Emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory…for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the Government of Lebanon.... Calls upon the Government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel…. But the Government of Lebanon paid no attention, or more accurately was unwilling to comply because it was afraid. In the last week of December, 2016, Lebanon got a new government under Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and as is customary the new Cabinet issued a “Ministerial Statement” outlining its plans. Those plans openly defied the Security Council’s many resolutions on Lebanon and bowed to Hezbollah pressure. Here are the relevant lines: In our conflict with the Israeli enemy, we will spare no effort or resistance in order to liberate the remaining occupied Lebanese territory, and to protect our homeland from an enemy who still covets our land, our water and our resources….The Government affirms the right of Lebanese citizens to resist the Israeli occupation, repel the Israeli aggressions and recapture the occupied territories. Note that it does not say the government of Lebanon has the right to resistance, or the state, or the Army, which would at least have endorsed the authority of the state in principle. The actual language legitimizes Hezbollah as a state within a state and legitimizes its military operations outside the control of the state. It was approved because Hezbollah demanded this, and the opposing forces (who got no visible Western support) were too weak to prevent it. So Lebanon is in violation of Security Council resolutions, and deliberately so. There was plenty of discussion about this issue--what exactly would the Ministerial Statement say about Hezbollah and its "right" to arms--and some key figures resisted the language Hezbollah wanted. But Hezbollah got its way (on this and several other key issues). What was the U.S. reaction? Here it is, from the White House: The United States congratulates Prime Minister Hariri on the Lebanese parliament’s approval of his cabinet on December 28….The United States stands steadfast in its support for a strong, stable, prosperous, and sovereign Lebanon as the new government works to strengthen state institutions, prepare for timely national elections, and uphold and implement Lebanon’s international commitments. But of course the Lebanese government had just announced, very clearly, that it was NOT going to “uphold and implement Lebanon’s international commitments.” Now, some critics will say this is not comparable to the situation in Israel and the new Resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements, because the Netanyahu government has the power to act to freeze settlements. Why does it not do so? Ah, well, it’s a coalition government and some members of the coalition would oppose a freeze; indeed they would leave the coalition over this and the government might well collapse. But that’s pretty much the situation in Lebanon. “Hariri cabinet capitulates to Hezbollah demand” was the headline in Gulf News. Had Hariri not agreed, he’d never have become prime minister or his new government would have collapsed. Of course the two situations are not comparable-- not when you consider that Hezbollah is a murderous terrorist group that kills people every day, and was likely involved in killing Saad Hariri’s father Rafik in 2005. As the New York Times reported in 2015 about Rafik Hariri’s murder by car bomb and the UN tribunal investigating that event, “the tribunal is producing overwhelming, albeit circumstantial, evidence that Hezbollah murdered the most important politician Lebanon had ever produced, and indiscriminately slaughtered many others in the process.” So one can sympathize with Saad Hariri and other Lebanese politicians when they bow to Hezbollah. The people who might leave Netanyahu’s cabinet will go home, not pick up machine guns and plant car bombs. But the fact remains that Lebanon is defying the Security Council very clearly and very deliberately, and no one says a word about it (except to applaud). No one is threatening a boycott of Lebanese goods until it complies. No one is suggesting that Lebanese politicians are violating international law by their complicity with and now official defense of Hezbollah. And actually, some pressure from the West might be useful in empowering and emboldening Lebanese politicians who are trying to resist Hezbollah, and risking their lives by doing so. But that’s not the point here. The point is that plenty of countries defy the UN but in very, very few cases is this even noticed, and in fewer still is anyone punished. Israel remains a special case, whose maltreatment in the UN is a disgrace—and one that, until the Obama administration decided to allow Resolution 2334 to pass, the United States fought and prevented in the Security Council. It may be a vain hope that the UN will depart from past practices and stop persecuting Israel, but it seems very likely that under the Trump administration the United States will return to past practices and defend Israel again. That would be a good start for 2017.

Blog Post by Elliott Abrams January 5, 2017 Pressure Points
Middle East and North Africa

The United Nations Resolution on Israel

Since the adoption last week the Security Council resolution on Israel, I’ve had my say in The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post condemning the Obama administration’s decision to allow the resolution to pass. The resolution rewards the PLO for refusing to negotiate and adopts its tactic of replacing serious, face-to-face negotiations with useless dramas in New York. It is a danger to Israel. And by refusing to veto, the Obama administration abandoned the usual American practice of defending Israel from what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "the jackals" at the United Nations. Over this past weekend, administration spokesmen have tried to defend this abandonment of Israel in truly Orwellian terms, inverting the meaning of their action. This was done to help Israel, you see, and to defend it; we know better where its interests lie than does its elected government (and main opposition parties); we abandoned Israel because we are its friend. These were main themes of the President’s aide Ben Rhodes when he spoke to reporters Friday, and among other things said the following, describing: a resolution that expresses the consensus international view on Israeli settlement activity....this is consistent with longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy as it relates to settlements....one of our grave concerns is that the continued pace of settlement activity -- which has accelerated in recent years, which has accelerated significantly since 2011.... let’s be clear here: We exhausted every effort to pursue a two-state solution through negotiations, through direct discussions, through proximity discussions, through confidence-building measures, through a lengthy and exhaustive effort undertaken by Secretary Kerry earlier in the President’s second term. We gave every effort that we could to supporting the parties coming to the table. So within the absence of any meaningful peace process, as well as in the face of accelerated settlement activity that put at risk the viability of a two-state solution, that we took the decision that we did today to abstain on this resolution.... where is the evidence that not doing this is slowing the settlement construction? If you enjoyed the children’s exercise where the child is asked to find all the things wrong in a picture--signs upside down, dogs with horns, etc--you will enjoy pondering Mr. Rhodes’s misleading narrative. Yes, the resolution "expresses the consensus international view on Israeli settlement activity," which calls them illegal, and that is the point: until the Obama administration, the United States’s position was that they were unhelpful but not illegal. Therefore the resolution is not "consistent with longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy." As to the pace of settlement activity, Mr. Rhodes is simply wrong. I’ve reviewed the statistics here, in Foreign Policy. There, Uri Sadot and I concluded that A careful look into the numbers shows that neither the population balance between Jews and Palestinians, nor the options for partition in the West Bank have materially changed....Israeli population in the settlements is growing, but at a rate that reflects mostly births in families already there, and not in-migration of new settlers. In fact settlement growth has not "accelerated significantly" since 2011, whatever Mr. Rhodes says. His most disingenuous remark is about the failure of negotiations. Indeed the Obama/Kerry efforts failed, because the Palestinians refused to come to the table even when Israel undertook a ten-month construction freeze. One of Mr. Obama’s officials, Martin Indyk, said this in 2014 about those negotiations: "Netanyahu moved to the zone of possible agreement. I saw him sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement," said Indyk. Abbas, for his part, did not show flexibility, Indyk added. "We tried to get Abu Mazen to the zone of possible agreement but we were surprised to learn he had shut down." So what is to be done when the Palestinians refuse to negotiate? Punish Israel. Join the jackals in Turtle Bay. Adopt the PLO view that action in the United Nations will replace face-to-face talks. That was Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Rhodes’s twisted formulation "where is the evidence that not doing this is slowing the settlement construction?" is a kind of epitaph for Obama policy. He explained: "we have a body of evidence to assess how this Israeli government has responded to us not taking this kind of action, and that suggests that they will continue to accelerate the type of settlement construction that puts a two-state solution at risk." Settlements expand if we veto resolutions, he is saying, so we have decided not to veto resolutions. This is precisely wrong, a true inversion of the truth. The Obama account of settlement expansion is invented and avoids the facts to build a case against Israel. Netanyahu is not popular among settlers exactly because he has restrained settlement growth and as noted adopted a ten-month freeze. In 2009 Hillary Clinton said "What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements ... is unprecedented." What has been the Obama reaction to his restraint, to his freeze, to the PLO refusal to negotiate? The reaction has been to blame Israel and assault Netanyahu year after year, including with childish epithets. And this attitude culminated finally in the abandonment of Israel at the United Nations. Supporters of strong Israel-American relations can only be glad that the 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two terms in the White House.

Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 27, 2016 Pressure Points