The Iraq Crisis And World Order

by Thakur, Ramesh Chandra; Sidhu, Waheguru Pal Singh

• ISBN13: 9789280811285
• ISBN10: 9280811282
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-30
• Publisher: United Nations Univ

Summary

The Iraq war was a multiple assault on the foundations and rules of the existing UN-centred world order. It called into question the adequacy of the existing institutions for articulating global norms and enforcing compliance with the demands of the international community. It highlighted also the unwillingness of some key countries to wait until definitive proof before acting to meet the danger of the world's most destructive weapons falling into the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes. It was simultaneously a test of the UN's willingness and ability to deal with brutal dictatorships and a searching scrutiny of the nature and exercise of American power. The United States is the world's indispensable power, but the United Nations is the world's indispensable institution. The UN Security Council is the core of the international law enforcement system and the chief body for building, consolidating and using the authority of the international community. The United Nations has the primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, and is structured to discharge this responsibility in a multipolar world where the major powers have permanent membership of the key collective security decision-making body, namely the UN Security Council. The emergence of the United States as the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War distorted the structural balance in the UN schema. The United Nations is the main embodiment of the principle of multilateralism and the principal vehicle for the pursuit of multilateral goals. The United States has global power, soft as well as hard; the United Nations is the fount of international authority. Progress towards a world of a rules-based, civilized international order requires that US force be put to the service of lawful international authority. This book examines these major normative and structural challenges from a number of different perspectives.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	p. ix
Framing the issues	p. 1
Iraq's challenge to world order	p. 3
Lines in the sand: The United Nations in Iraq, 1980-2001	p. 16
Structural and normative challenges	p. 35
The unipolar concert: Unipolarity and multilateralism in the age of globalization	p. 37
International peace and security and state sovereignty: Contesting norms and norm entrepreneurs	p. 57
The world says no: The global movement against war in Iraq	p. 75
Perspectives from within the region	p. 93
Iraq and world order: A Lebanese perspective	p. 95
Iraq and world order: A Turkish perspective	p. 114
Iran's assessment of the Iraq crisis and the post-9/11 international order	p. 134
The Iraq crisis and world order: An Israeli perspective	p. 161
Egypt and the Iraq war	p. 175
Reactions in the Muslim world to the Iraq conflict	p. 187
External actor perspectives	p. 201
The United States and the United Nations in light of wars on terrorism and Iraq	p. 203
Baghdad to Baghdad: The United Kingdom's odyssey	p. 217
Explaining France's opposition to the war against Iraq	p. 234
Iraq and world order: A Russian perspective	p. 249
Iraq and world order: A German perspective	p. 265
Avoiding a strategic failure in the aftermath of the Iraq war: Partnership in peacebuilding	p. 282
Iraq and world order: A Latin American perspective	p. 298
Iraq and world order: A Pakistani perspective	p. 315
Iraq and world order: A perspective on NATO's relevance	p. 328
The Iraq crisis and world order: A perspective from the European Union	p. 344
Quicksand? The United Nations in Iraq, 2001-2005	p. 357
International legal and doctrinal issues	p. 379
The war in Iraq as illegal and illegitimate	p. 381
Legitimacy as an assessment of existing legal standards: The case of the 2003 Iraq war	p. 397
The multinational action in Iraq and international law	p. 413
Iraq and the social logic of international security	p. 426
Justifying the Iraq war as a humanitarian intervention: The cure is worse than the disease	p. 444
The responsibility to protect and the war on Saddam Hussein	p. 464
Post-war relations between occupying powers and the United Nations	p. 479
"Common enemies": The United States, Israel and the world crisis	p. 497
Conclusion	p. 517
Structural and normative challenges	p. 519
Index	p. 535
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