Do you think this has anything to do with the UN’s relationship with the Sunni minority in Iraq?
At the request of the UN, the Iraqi government delayed the National Conference, which was scheduled for July 31, by two weeks. The UN is applying considerable pressure on the conference organisers to ignore the results of recent elections, conducted around Iraq to select 550 of the 1000 representatives for the conference. The UN is not happy with the fact that the majority of winning candidates are Shia Arab, although in a country which is two-thirds Shia this doesn’t seem to be that surprising. Instead, the UN is trying to force Iraq to ignore election results and accept candidates of the UN’s choosing – notably excluding many election winners and considerably reducing Shia participation. If the UN is allowed to get away with this then Iraqis will lose faith in future elections and the entire democratic process.
A couple of weeks ago the Wall Street Journal (print) had an article on the bureaucratic nightmare that the UN has created in Kosovo. They will do the same to Iraq if we continue to encourage their involvement. A successful Iraq does not fit well into the UN scheme of things.
You can get this kind of information from Iraqi Prospect Organization. I get an email from them about once a month.
How is it that the same people who say the US Supreme Court ‘selected’ Bush for President support the UN when they do outrageous things like this? Oh…the Left is under no obligation to be consistent. Sorry, I forgot.
Comment by Tom — August 12, 2004 @ 7:32 am
While I think that the UN is useless at best, dangerous at worst, it seems like this conference was put off for other reasons too, at least according to this story. Then again, this is an AP article. On the other hand, it’s ludicrous that al-Sadr’s group’s refusal to attend could have stopped this conference from going further
Comment by Carla — August 12, 2004 @ 4:40 pm