UN-Iran discussion mirrors Iraq debate

Some experts warn that the US may act independently if the UN Security Council takes too long on Iran.
As the United Nations Security Council wrestles with how to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, discussion at UN headquarters is at times as much about the council's effectiveness and America's role in the international community as it is about Iran.
Sound vaguely familiar?

Three years after the Bush administration pressed the Security Council to act on Iraq's weapons programs or face independent US action against the Baghdad regime, the UN is witnessing a strikingly similar conversation. Moreover, some experts warn that dallying by the council could prompt the US to eventually act outside the UN. "Déjà vu," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of the current standoff. He was Russia's UN ambassador during the Iraq debate. "If that is déjà vu, so be it," responded US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who says the Iran case is about getting a country to comply with its international obligations.


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Yet even as debate continues, some experts said the apparent difficulties in lining up behind even this rather mild rebuke suggests the council is still laboring with issues reminiscent of the Iraq debate. "The negotiations over Iran are causing a distinct sense of déjà vu, not least among those who said at the time of the Iraq debate that it was the final chance for the Security Council to prove its worth," says Nile Gardiner, a specialist in the UN's role in international affairs at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "Frustration, particularly in Washington, over the UN system has only built up," he adds, "so the Iran debate is going to be hugely important for how the US deals with the Security Council - or whether it prefers to bypass it altogether in the future."


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For some experts, US rejection of the new Human Rights Council only adds to the sense among some countries that America is still acting as it did on Iraq. "On the human rights (council) and increasingly on Iran the US is coming across as 'It's our way or the highway,' " says Lawrence Korb, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington. "There's a sense the administration would love to do something more muscular on Iran, like they did in Iraq, but that what's stopping them is a lack of any good options," he adds. "That doesn't raise a lot of confidence that the US has really changed and is now set on working with the international community."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0316/p03s03-usfp.html

From another story of Yahoo:

In a 49-page national security report, the president reaffirmed the strike-first, or pre-emptive policy he first outlined in 2002. Diplomacy is the U.S. preference in halting the spread of nuclear and other heinous weapons, Bush said.

"If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur — even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack," Bush wrote.

"When the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. ... The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same."