Rusher: Must we put up with the United Nations?

by

Originally Published in the Milford Daily News on September 28, 2006

The recent outbursts before the United Nations General Assembly by Iranian President Ahmed Ahmedinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and perhaps even more the enthusiastic applause with which they were greeted, raise in American minds the legitimate question whether the United States must put up with these antics. Why not simply withdraw from the United Nations, or at least stop paying a quarter of its expenses, or (better yet) tell it to vacate its fancy offices on Manhattan’s East Side and relocate to Paris?

The idea is tempting, and not altogether unreasonable. When the United Nations was founded in 1945, it was designed to provide a dignified forum in which the world’s nations could discuss their problems and their differences in a peaceful setting. A provision was made to give the world’s major powers (most importantly the United States and the Soviet Union) a veto over certain actions, on the sensible theory that the organization simply couldn’t insist on anything either of them firmly opposed.

On this basis the United Nations behaved reasonably well until about 1960, when an incoming flood of ex-colonial nations seized control of the General Assembly and began using the United Nations as a bargaining tool to extract various concessions (mostly money) from the two sides in the Cold War. Thereafter the United Nations became a sort of global prostitute, selling its favors to one or another of the competitors in that vital struggle.

This continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which famously left the United States as “the world’s only superpower.” The U.N. General Assembly thereupon converted itself into an instrument for limiting America’s power and thwarting its purposes under the leadership of France and Germany, who not surprisingly sought to counterbalance the United States. The applause from the General Assembly for the fulminations of Chavez and Ahmedinejad simply reflects the noisy hostility of most U.N. members to this country.

What to do? Pulling out of the United Nations would not eliminate it. It would keep on doing its best to body-block the United States, and hostility to this country would not only continue but increase, dramatically highlighted by our solitary absence from the organization. But staying in and doing nothing is scarcely better.

Ideally, the best course would probably be to encourage the founding and growth of a new group of the world’s truly democratic nations, dedicated to addressing the world’s problems with their wealth and wisdom, and gradually diminish the United Nations’s pretensions. But such undeniably democratic nations as France and Germany would undoubtedly refuse to go along with such a scheme, preferring to pursue their current strategy in the United Nations.

In the circumstances, therefore, the best course may be the one proposed by the late James Burnham: for the United States to announce that it will continue supporting the beneficial activities of the United Nations in such matters as world health, but henceforth will not participate in, or vote on, its deliberations involving major political issues. (We would retain, however, our veto power, to block seriously offensive actions.) The United Nations would undoubtedly continue, and probably increase, its issuance of anti-American manifestos of one sort and another, but their essential unimportance would become steadily more apparent as the years rolled by.

The antics of such anti-American fanatics as Chavez and Ahmedinejad would continue, but if the American delegation made it a practice to simply walk quietly out of the hall when truly outrageous attacks were under way, our response would be clear and telling.

The United Nations cannot be reformed, and cannot be ignored. But there is no reason why the United States must continue to dignify the antics that characterize it.

William Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy.

Copyright 2006, Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

Author

  • William A. Rusher, a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute, was the publisher of National Review magazine from 1957 to 1988. A prominent conservative spokesman, Rusher gained national recognition over forty years as a television and radio personality. Since 1973, his syndicated column "The Conservative Advocate" has appeared in newspapers across the U.S. He is also a prolific author and lecturer, with five books and numerous articles. His notable works include "The Making of the New Majority Party" and "The Rise of the Right." An influential political activist, Rusher was instrumental in the 1961 draft of Barry Goldwater for the 1964 Republican nomination, which reshaped the Republican Party and continued under Ronald Reagan. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, served in the Air Force during World War II, and worked at a major Wall Street law firm. He also served as associate counsel to the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee before joining National Review. In 1989, Rusher became a Distinguished Fellow at the Claremont Institute, continuing to write and advise from his home in San Francisco. He remains active on various boards, including the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, National Review Inc., and the Media Research Center.

    View all posts

Recent Articles

Quotes About William Rusher

“Nobody, but nobody, was more at the heart of this. Rusher’s fingerprints were everywhere—and not just involved, but you get a feeling that he was pulling an awful lot of the strings.” — Richard Viguerie, referring to Rusher’s role in the conservative movement over...

The Quotable Bill Rusher Part 2: From His Books

Special Counsel (1968) “… a steady diet of political infighting tends to coarsen, and ultimately to cheapen, most participants. They approach politics as reasonably honorable citizens, and by imperceptible degrees it sucks them into its vortex. The plainly right...

The Quotable Bill Rusher

from If Not Us, Who? William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement “Politicians are the grease on which society’s wheels turn. And they can’t be better, most of the time, than a sort of low competence and honor.”—from an interview for Rusher’s...

Rusher at 100: Realism for the 21st Century

(June 23, 2023—revised December 21, 2023) William Rusher, a dynamic force on the American right who passed away in 2011 after decades as comrade and mentor to many conservatives, was born a full century ago on July 19, 1923. His centenary comes at a hard time for...

Book Presentation: “If Not Us, Who?” by David B. Frisk

Click to watch the presentation of "If Not Us, Who?" by David Frisk to the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC on C-SPAN. David Frisk's book, If Not Us, Who?: William Rusher, 'National Review,' and the Conservative Movement, offers a comprehensive exploration of the...

Bill’s Biography

William Rusher was an influential political strategist, commentator, and debater at the heart of the conservative movement in the second half of the twentieth century, a movement whose ascent he documented in his 1984 book The Rise of the Right -- one of many examples...

More Resources

Quotes About William Rusher

“Nobody, but nobody, was more at the heart of this. Rusher’s fingerprints were everywhere—and not just involved, but you get a feeling that he was pulling an awful lot of the strings.” — Richard Viguerie, referring to Rusher’s role in the conservative movement over...

The Quotable Bill Rusher Part 2: From His Books

Special Counsel (1968) “… a steady diet of political infighting tends to coarsen, and ultimately to cheapen, most participants. They approach politics as reasonably honorable citizens, and by imperceptible degrees it sucks them into its vortex. The plainly right...

The Quotable Bill Rusher

from If Not Us, Who? William Rusher, National Review, and the Conservative Movement “Politicians are the grease on which society’s wheels turn. And they can’t be better, most of the time, than a sort of low competence and honor.”—from an interview for Rusher’s...

“If Not Us, Who?”

If Not Us, Who? takes you on a journey into the life of William Rusher, a key player in shaping the modern conservative movement. Known for his long stint as the publisher of National Review, Rusher wasn't just a publisher—he was a crucial strategist and thinker in...

Contact Us