When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez went before the United Nations General Assembly in September to denounce President Bush as “the devil,” he wasn’t just airing his point of view. He was campaigning for a seat on the UN Security Council. He obviously figured that if he wanted to ingratiate himself with the governments that vote on such matters, the best way was denouncing the United States.
It looked like a sound tactic at the time: Delegates laughed at his references to the smell of sulfur and gave him a thunderous ovation when he finished. Chavez, flush with oil revenue, has funneled considerable aid to countries in Latin America and Africa in an effort to cultivate friends who will cooperate in his anti-American agenda. He also recently played host to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
There was talk that the other country in the race, Guatemala, might sink under the weight of Washington’s endorsement of its bid for one of the 10 rotating seats on the Security Council, whose permanent members include the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France. So confident was Chavez that he virtually guaranteed victory: “Venezuela is going to the United Nations, to the Security Council, even though the gringos and imperialists don’t want it.”
But even at the UN, whose members include many dictatorships that have no love for Washington, cooler heads sometimes prevail. When the time came to vote this week, Venezuela fell embarrassingly short, trailing Guatemala in 34 of the 35 votes held in the deadlocked General Assembly. About the only thing Venezuela achieved was preventing Guatemala from getting a two-thirds majority.
By the end of the week, there was speculation that a third country would emerge as a compromise choice. Guatemala indicated it would step aside, but only if Venezuela did likewise.
While the United States hardly commands universal love, most members would rather have Washington working with the UN than spurning it. At a time when the world is wrestling with such formidable challenges as the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran, the civil war in Sudan, global warming and more, the election of Venezuela would have been a strong signal to Americans that the UN is anything but a serious place to do business.
As Ambassador John Bolton pointed out, irresponsible members of the Security Council can impede sensible action on urgent matters. “Nobody expects anything like complete unanimity on our issues, but there’s a difference between constructive discussion and unconstructive behavior,” he said before the initial vote.
Among the member governments, there are plenty that disagree with many elements of American foreign policy. That’s fine: The U.S. has never shied from open debate about global disputes, as when it went to the UN in an effort to force Saddam Hussein to comply with his international obligations. But there is not much to debate with a leader like Chavez who refers to George W. Bush as a “genocidal murderer.”
The Security Council has plenty of important work to do. The UN’s rejection of Chavez’s demagoguery will facilitate that work.
