Presidential Candidates Make Nice with the U.N.
While the embracement of the U.N. from each of the three candidates varied, none of them outright condemned the organization as they should have:
NEW YORK — Sen. Barack Obama would talk directly with adversaries, without the fig leaf of multilateralism.
Sen. John McCain wants to create a “League of Democracies” to take action when a divided U.N. Security Council won’t.
And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would beef up peacekeeping missions around the globe with American cash, assets, trainers and technocrats.
None of the candidates would radically alter when or how the United States engages the United Nations, according to their own senior foreign-policy advisers, but each would tweak the relationship in his or her own way. And the consensus around the halls of the United Nations is that the U.S.-U.N. relationship is likely to warm noticeably in January, regardless of who becomes the next president. {Source: Washington Times}
All three presidential candidates support the broad notion of a strong and independent United Nations, according to their campaign staffs: They want to pay American dues fully and on time; they all want the United States to have greater influence; and they say the world body should be more effective in counterterrorism and national security but note that the United Nations is not the only multilateral option.
In fact, Hillary Clinton sees an increased role for the U.N.:
The New York Democrat appears more willing than her rivals to make use of the United Nations. On the campaign trail, she has promised to “operationalize” the principle that all nations have the responsibility to protect civilians when their own government cannot or will not.
In adopting the responsibility to protect, or “R2P,” as it is known, “the United Nations accepted the principle that mass atrocities that take place in one state are the concern of all states,” she said, adding that a Clinton administration would recognize the prevention of mass atrocities as a national security interest, not just a humanitarian goal.
She would also see that U.N. peacekeeping is made more effective, to better perform the complex missions that are asked of it, said Clinton campaign foreign-policy adviser Lee Feinstein.
“Peacekeeping needs to be able to deploy rapidly and she thinks the U.S. has a lot more it can do to approve the U.N. capability to be effective,” he said.
That means paying for missions Washington approves in the Security Council, but also “providing more support, such as training, working with [the department] at headquarters, financial, a whole range of things that the Pentagon itself says could happen.”
All three campaigns declined to comment on whether they would put American troops under U.N. command. In my opinion, any candidate who said yes to that would be violating the U.S. Constitution.
It would have been nice to have any of the candidates, preferably the GOP candidate, talk about reforming and reorganizing the U.N., rather than pledging continued support, funding, and for some of the candidates, an expanded role for it.
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