IN 2004, former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold published a book called ‘Tower of Babble: How the United Nations has Fuelled Global Chaos’. The book criticised what it called the organisation’s moral relativism in the face of genocide and terrorism that occurred between the moral clarity of its founding period and the present day.

The UN during its founding period was limited to those nations that declared war on at least one of the Axis Powers of World War II, and thus were capable of taking a stand against evil.

The modern United Nations has become a pawn in the hand of the world’s only superpower. In 1959, John Birch Society declared a campaign, ‘get US out of the UN’, charging that the UN’s aim was to establish a ‘One World Government’.

There has been criticism that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), which are all nuclear powers, have created an exclusive nuclear club whose powers are unchecked. Unlike the General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council does not have true international representation. This has led to accusations that the Security Council only addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members, especially in humanitarian interventions.

The US is now trying to get support of the UN on the military action against Syria. Dreams of the Arab Spring have been shattered. Since the Vietnam War, the US is taking advantage of the United Nations.

In the last 10 years, the US-imposed war on Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations have killed thousands of people, and the UN has supported every move of the United States. In these circumstances re-engineering of the United Nations is a must to avoid any other world war.

The first move for the UN is to get out of the US and establish headquarters at Geneva or any other place in Third World countries.

The US is taking advantage of the UN presence in New York. Another most important issue is powers of the Security Council which the UN must abolish, especially veto powers of the Permanent Security Council members and give all powers to the General Assembly.

A democratic UN will be more powerful and deliver properly at each and every front of global issues. The US is getting benefit of its veto powers and using the UN. The UN must stop the US for another war in the Arab peninsula because it will further harm poor nations. The UN is the only forum which will bell the cat.

AIJAZ ALI KHUWAJA Karachi