[A-List] US imperialism: UNSC and Iraq

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Nations ponder expense of US stance at UN
By Carola Hoyos at the United Nations and Alan Beattie in Washington
Financial Times: November 7 2002

When the United Nations Security Council finally votes on the US resolution
against Iraq, many of its member countries will take into consideration
their economic, military and political relationship with the world's sole
superpower at least as much as the text of the document before them.

"It's much more obvious than 10 years ago that every country on the Security
Council is beholden to the US," said one Security Council observer, adding:
"The new world order is beginning to emerge now and in that, the US is
all-powerful."

During the past six weeks of negotiations, most Security Council members
have backed France's proposed resolution - which, contrary to US preference,
would have bound Washington to seek Security Council authorisation for war.
But a mix of pragmatism and US compromise has ultimately prompted most of
them to side with Washington.

US officials say movement by the 10 elected, non-permanent members of the
Security Council towards its position has marked a watershed in the
negotiations. Once the US appeared to have the nine votes needed for the
resolution to pass, Paris was forced to recognise that the only way to stop
the text would be to use its veto - a huge political gamble.

The US is now expected to garner at least 11 votes in favour of the
resolution, with a maximum of three abstentions (Russia, France and China)
and one opposing vote by Syria. But diplomats are not ruling out the
possibility of a unanimous agreement.

Either way, the outcome will in part reflect the US's ability - superior to
that of every other country - to exert bilateral pressure on its fellow
Security Council members.

Casting a long shadow over this week's vote is the "most expensive 'no' vote
Yemen ever cast," as coined by a US ambassador in 1990 when Sana'a learned
the cost of opposing Washington.

Shortly after Yemen, joined only by Cuba, voted against the 1990 resolution
authorising an attack to oust Iraq's forces from Kuwait, the US axed a $70m
aid package to the country and Saudi Arabia expelled thousands of Yemeni
workers from its territory. The action swelled the ranks of Yemen's
unemployed and halted lucrative remittances on which the country depended.

Fearing similar retribution, Mauritius, an elected member of the Security
Council, this weekend suddenly recalled Jagdish Koonjul, its popular
ambassador to the UN, citing his failure to clearly express Mauritius'
support for the US resolution text.

The State Department refuses to discuss the issue of influencing votes on
the Security Council. But Bruce Russett, director of United Nations studies
at Yale University, says: "I have no doubt that western governments
frequently seek politic compliance from smaller poorer, countries in this
way. For a small, poor country it can make a difference - both the carrot
and deprivation."

Since the cold war, US influence has been exercised more by way of overall
bilateral relationships than by using aid payments as a direct foreign
policy lever, scholars say.

The evidence certainly leaves open to question the correlation between aid
transfers and US influence at the UN. In a study of voting patterns in the
General Assembly in 1998, Brett Schaefer, senior policy analyst at the
conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, found countries that
received US aid voted with the US 43 per cent of the time, against 49 per
cent for non-recipients.

Nevertheless, many of the Security Council's smaller members are keenly
aware of the dangers of crossing the US. "Cameroon and Guinea [both former
French colonies] were careful never to suggest automatic support for the
position of Paris. In this debate ultimately US commercial interests in
Africa, including in the oil sector, outstrip in terms of potential those of
France," says David Malone, president of the International Peace Academy, a
think tank that closely follows the UN.

Meanwhile, Security Council members Colombia - a big recipient of US
military aid - and Bulgaria, which wants US backing to join the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation, have supported Washington over Iraq from day
one.

But Colombia, like Mexico, which was until recently undecided who to back,
is in a stronger position to assert its views than smaller countries because
its symbiotic relationship with the US cuts both ways.

Even Russia has been careful not to damage its chances of warmer relations
with the Bush administration. Moscow left much of the opposition to the US
text to France, while trying to secure its future role in Iraq's lucrative
oil business in backroom discussions with the US, diplomats said.

At the core of the past six weeks' debate is the question whether the US or
the Security Council should have the final word in deciding on the need for
war against Iraq.

Diplomats say the vote will ultimately decide whether countries are willing
to risk being categorised by Washington as a supporter of Saddam Hussein,
Iraq's leader.

Highlighting that fear, Mauritius on Wednesday decided to send Mr Koonjul,
who this week received a stern talking to by Anerood Jugnauth, the country's
prime minister, back to New York to vote in favour of the resolution.

"Mauritius will support the resolution, as it had been decided from the
start," Anil Gayan, Mauritian foreign minister, said. "Iraq must be
disarmed, as it has a track record in using chemical weapons."