POLL: Is it time to leave Iraq?

Nope, the UN has not. It has arranged itself with the fact that they cannot stop the US but they have *not* endorsed or legitimsed it. They loosenend sanctions in the interest of the Iraqi people because otherwise reconstruction would not have been possible, but that's about it. There simply is no UN security council resolution entitling the US to occupy Iraq.

It might seem to you that way but there still is a fundamental legal difference.

 

It doesn't matter whether the U.N. has sanctioned it or not. Their moral authority is about nil at this point.

 

Oh well, there we go again ...

Blackhawk - ever thought about how much worth is US moral authority overseas today? I mean, you may not have noticed, but it's at its nadir.
Something like what de Gaulle said to Kennedy during the Cuba crisis is unthinkable today: "The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me. I don't need to see any evidence."

And BTA, the UN faced reality, that they cannot change anything because of US veto. That's what they mean with "Authority". It only recognises that US has control, nothing more. They made the US responsible for what happens in Iraq as they control the country - that is something different than legitimising them.

 

We speak about UN here. Certainly I don't doubt its importance in the world, as noone should.
But we should admit that UN is almost a puppet, just like the Security Council, in case of the decisions of the United States. USA doesn't really cares about UN (neither about SC) as far as these problems are concerned.

 

@BTA

I admit that I haven't read the entire resolution but I don't think that it gives the "Authority" the right to administer the Iraqi terriroty and therefore it doesnt legalise the invasion . I think that it simply states to the occupying forces that they have to respect the obligations that every occupying force has according to the international laws, regardless of the legality of the invasion.It's something similar with the situation in Cyprus. In Cyprus the UN have never legalized the turkish invasion and they have never recognized the turkish government of Northern Cyprus, although they talk with the turkish government and the leaders of the Turk-Cypriots administration.

 

BTA,

In that way, the UN resolutions demanding Saddam's withdrawal from Iraq and stressing his responsibility for the fate of the Kuwaitis and their property, also recognised the Iraqi presence in Kuwait. But by that his presence there was not legitimised at all.

A resolution recognising presence and explicitly allocating accountability and responsibility is one thing, a UN mandate and legitimacy are quite something else.

 

BTA,

Well, how should she, with the US sitting in the security council, ready to veto such a resolution?

The US is not going to allow to be declared an agressor by the security council - even if they are. I cannot imagine the US having an interest in seeing an alternative resoltuion, with the stuff you sketched, decided.

You forget that the UN does not so much reflect just itself but, especially in the security council, the political will or goodwill, or lack thereof, of the permanent members. Structurally the UN is unable to stop the US, or any other permanent member, who are meant to be the guardians of the charter and the international law it reflects.

Speak about the Fox guarding the henhouse: In case of Iraq the US are, as a permanent member, in the favorable position to judge their own crimes, clearly an unlucky arrangement, displaying the key flaw of the UN - that it can only be as good or effective as the permanent members want it to be. When they agree, what happens once in a while, the UN can act swift and decisively - as when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

 

The US case for war on Iraq had rejected already been rejected with the second Iraq resolution. The UN wanted to be constructive, and not to appear to play against the US, even more as the US then invoked the picture of the poor tormented Iraqis while accusing the UN to delay the help they doubtless needed after a decade of US bombing and the recent war.

Any resolution demanding the US to immediately withdraw would have not only been futile but it would have worsened the US-UN relations, maybe even leading to the US leaving the UN. "Sentencing" the US would not have been worth the trouble.

Diplomats talk to each other, and need to keep talking. That was why Iraq was not expelled after invading Kuwait (not even by the general assembly where there is no veto), and that is why the US never have been expelled even though they didn't pay their fees for nearly a decade.
It is better to keep talking with a 'fallen member' than to expell it and make it harden their position in the sort of insulted pride the US displayed when their second Iraq resolution failed. You may remember all that babble of "no moral legitimacy" [of the UN] people like to reiterate here and then.

In the end it's just about a whacky president and his crazy crew of radicals. When we are all lucky they'll be gone till autum ... regime change. No need for the UN fo srew it all up for the next decades - the UN is quite pragmatic and thinks long term: There is a time after Iraq.

 

Well, I can tell you what the UN did not, that is, they did NOT give the US a mandate, and they did not legitimize the US invasion.

What they said is instead: You're occupier and therefor responsible and accountable as you exercise the control in Iraq.

And that means that the US presence in Iraq has a significant legal flaw, well described in this article: Operation Iraqi Lawsuit.

There is no court to sentence the US for the war because the US have not agreed to the juridiction of the international court, because sovereign countries need to. International law is based on consensus.
What politically matters is in the beginning indeed a question of power. Till now the US have been able to pull off their coup thanks to their military might and their relative invulnerablitity thanks to being a permanent member and their economic leverage to armtwist minors into submission (like in the coalition of the willing). The US are able to get away with things that cost other countries their sovereignty. That is the nexus of politics and international law.

Not getting sentenced in the international arena doesn't mean you're no scrouge. Being sentenced just states it explicitly. Might does not make right.