Obama Falls Into a U.N. Trap

Things at the U.N. are not looking good for good guys due to Russia and China's veto of a plan designed to liberate Syria from its dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

Remember when the United Nations was going to be the new global venue for "collective security"? The place where the Obama Administration's faith in diplomacy and willingness to lead from behind would pay off in world solidarity against dictators and thugs? 

So much for that. On Saturday, Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-backed Security Council resolution supporting an Arab League plan to ease Syria's Bashar Assad from power. 

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice now says she's "disgusted." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto "a travesty" and struck a note of unilateralism that would make Dick Cheney proud: "Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people's right to have a better future." She added that "Assad must go." 

Coalition of the willing, anyone?

Ah, but it's churlish to gloat, especially when more than 5,000 Syrians have been murdered by their government, and the incessant carping at similar postures taken by the previous Administration already brought it down and ushered in the golden age of Socialist excess in America.  Moreover, it's premature, as the same media that downplays this return to cold-war machinations at the U.N. will be splashing similar events across the front pages, filling the editorial pages and leading the nightly newscasts with excoriations once Republicans reassume responsibility for world power.

This is what happens when a U.S. Administration sees the world as it would like it to be, not the way it is. The White House apparently believed its own spin that last year's Libyan operation signaled a brave new multilateral era.  

The American folly is in giving the U.N. any ability to stop an anti-Assad coalition that includes the Turks, all of non-Russian Europe, the U.S. and the Arab world. 

With each week of Mr. Assad's brutality, the cost in lives and the odds of civil war will continue to rise unless Mr. Obama does more than bow before the false moral authority of the U.N.

With each week of Mr. Assad's brutality, the cost in lives and the odds of civil war will continue to rise unless Mr. Obama does more than bow before the false moral authority of the U.N.

I wonder what they're thinking about this turn of events at the U.N. inside the Vatican's Justice and Peace Commission, and inside Ron Paul's campaign headquarters.