Appeasement mentality at the UN: Britain’s Iraq inquiry reveals astonishing views on UN and democratic legitimacy from top UK diplomat
The way in which senior western diplomats view the world is something we are usually reduced to speculating about. Shrouded in off the record briefings, the business of international statecraft is mostly hidden from view. Allegations about an appeasement-oriented mindset remain just that — allegations.
But sometimes, it all comes out into the open. Today’s hearings at Britain’s official inquiry into the Iraq war have provided startling evidence of the way in which the country’s diplomatic class regards the assorted dictatorships and tyrannies which hold so much sway at the United Nations.
The day’s events featured testimony on the events leading up to the Iraq war by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s former ambassador to the UN. In response to a question about the legitimacy of the war, Greenstock described the United Nations as a profoundly democratic institution. Since all member states had a vote, he said, it was clearly able to either confer or withold democratic legitimacy on actions taken by other member states.
The Iraq war, he said, was “legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn’t have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states”.
Now, let us leave aside the vexed questions of whether the decision to go to war was right, how it might have been handled better once the invasion took place and what to do from here on out. Big questions, to be sure.
But savour, if you will, the mindset that guides the day to day running of UK foreign policy, something which can usefully serve as a proxy for thinking in foreign ministries across western Europe. For Greenstock to believe that the likes of Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iran et al can confer democratic legitimacy on anything is frankly staggering. But this is clearly how such people think, and it is on the basis of this assumption that our diplomats speak and conduct themselves.
I need hardly point out to regular readers of this website the implications of such a mentality for the State of Israel –the favourite whipping boy of the international community. In Greenstock’s mind, if a majority at the UN gives its approval to something it must, therefore, be legitimate. Might is right.
The mind boggles….
November 27th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
It is not a wonder that freedom is on the decline in the world if an ambassador from the nation of the “Mother of Parliaments” has such a warped persepctive on reality. Rather than just wory about Israel, I think Britain had better take a good look at herself before she becomes the foothold for 21st century evil. Unfortunately, it seems she is well on her way.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The guys has got it wrong. There can be no such thing as a democratic body, when parts of that body are made up by autocracies.
For this guy to completely ignore the oppresive nature of states like Saudi Arabia or the blatant self interest of the French, Germans and Russians is an utter farce.
For me, Saddam had 10 years to sort his life out. He gambled that Uncle Sam wouldnt do anything…and he lost, and lost big time.
But that is a different argument.
Mailman
November 27th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/17/sir-jeremy-greenstock-ambassador-for-hamas/
“Hamas, which in fact has no deep-rooted argument with the west or Christianity, no political alliance with Tehran or Hezbollah, no respect for al-Qaida and no “charter” for the destruction of Israel in its political programme, just wants the Israeli occupation to end.”
Greenstock pushes the “fluffy Hamas” thesis of Conflict Forum/Forward Thinking. He just doesn’t get it.
November 28th, 2009 at 7:57 am
http://cifwatch.com/cif-contributors/jeremy-greenstock/
Greenstock features in CiFWatch
November 28th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/richard-ingrams/richard-ingramsrsquos-week-will-zionists-links-to-iraq-invasion-be-brushed-aside-1829896.html
The vile Richard Ingrams is right on cue in today’s Independent. Look at the comments too… indistinguishable from Stormfront:
“There is much dispute concerning Murdoch’s antecedents, particularly his mother Elizabeth Green. One thing is for certain though and that is Murdoch is an out and out Zionist and he makes sure that the Times, for example, constantly beats the war drum over Iran.
Only this week a Times reporter, Hannah Strange, asserted as a fact that Hezbullah had bombed a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1984. This is no more than a Zionist allegation.
And talking of antecedents, Blair’s entry on wikipedia includes the interesting cliam that his maternal grandmother was an Ashkenazim Jew. If true, this would of course make Blair Jewish under Judaic religious law which would explain a lot.
Finally, I salute Richard Ingrams, one of the very few journalists with the guts to tell the truth about the scandalous stitch in appointing two Zionist Jews to the Iraq war enquiry panel.”
By the way there is evidence - which I will produce - that Israel wanted the US to attack Iran, not Iraq.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for this article. Truly amazing - almost unbelievable. The UK’s citizens need to do something urgently to stop the tragic decline of their country that has been handed off to fools - or worse - like Greenstock.
November 28th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Jonathan Freedland in JC yesterday: “But, as Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, has testified, Israel consistently warned the Bush administration that it was Iran, not Iraq, that posed the real threat: “The Israelis tried their best to persuade us that we were focused on the wrong enemy,” Wilkerson has said.
What we have here is a clutch of nasty old clichés, still clung to by those who carry great titles and honours – and a few very stubborn prejudices.”
November 29th, 2009 at 11:09 am
“But sometimes, it all comes out into the open.” This is an excellent point and, for my taxpayer’s money, is the whole point of the Chilcot Inquiry. The public are finally allowed to see the shadowy manipulations of the Arabist Foreign Office. No longer portrayed in the entertaining caricature of Sir Humphrey in the “Yes Minister” TV series, we now catch a personal glimpse of the real international power brokers.
Take, for instance, Sir William Patey, head of the Foreign Office Middle East department, graduate of Dundee University, knighted in the New Year honours list and there on the witness stand for us all to form an impression of. He seems an affable enough pear-shaped man with a bald pate to match his name. But this guise is paper-thin when we realise that he was probably Britain’s chief negotiator in scuppering the corruption investigation into the £43bn Saudi Arabian Al Yamamah arms sales contract with BAe Systems, Britain’s largest export contract.
We can judge him now, at last, speaking Arabic on YouTube. We can remember his former associates, the amorous buffoon Craig Murray and the prosecuted anti-semite Rowan Laxton. We can now assess for ourselves whether he and his predecessors are the ones responsible for the catastrophe that is British foreign policy in the Middle East from thw War and the Suez crisis in 1956 onwards.
But please let’s all do this before we vote at the next general election, for the Chilcot Inquiry report will not be published until afterwards, whereupon it will be quietly shelved like all reports before it and the phenomenal bill sent to you and me the taxpayers. Sir William, meanwhile, not having been democratically elected, will still be in a job and looking forward to his pension.