UNfinished?

 

A Gloomy Future for U.N. as “Ethical Standard Bearer” for Global Affairs

IAN WILLIAMS REGIONS NORTH AMERICA POSTED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2026

 

People stage a protest in Mogadishu to express support for the country’s territorial integrity following Israel's recognition of Somaliland, on Jan. 7, 2026. Demonstrators carrying Somali flags chanted slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel. (ABUUKAR MOHAMED MUHIDIN/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2026, pp. 14-16

United Nations Report

By Ian Williams

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE on the Security Council, the Palestinians’ only hope is that their enemies, like Binyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, implode under the pressure of their own amoral incompetence. It is not only the tortured people of Gaza and the West who pay the price for the perfidy and invertebracy of the U.N. Security Council members, but the people of the world.

As we said when Security Council Resolution 2803 was “passed” like a groaning bowel movement, the Gaza “ceasefire” agreement  was more of an instrument of unconditional surrender to Trump and Netanyahu than it was a viable peace plan. The continuing death toll in the Strip, not to mention in the West Bank, totally vindicates our suspicions, which follow decades in which the U.S. condoned an Israeli opt out from international law and the hindrances of the U.N. Charter. 

Most U.N. watchers consider the Security Council veto to be a major impediment to the effectiveness of the organization, and one solution popular for some diplomats was a large increase in the number of permanent members with veto power. British diplomats, for their own self-evident motives, had maneuvered the title of the agenda item from the “reform” of the Security Council to its “enlargement,” but then argued, on now eminently reasonable grounds, against all suggested changes. 

Enlargement was, as we have often pointed out, a self-serving obtuse answer to the wrong question, which is not how to make the Security Council into a more “representative” job creation scheme for diplomats, but rather how to make it more effective. Doubling the number of veto holders is manifestly a way to put rocks in the cogs.

REWRITING INTERNATIONAL LAW

Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the revived corpse of George W. Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” goes to the opposite extreme. The president doubles as Secretary General by deciding who can be on the board and what goes on the agenda—and then has a veto on any decisions.

A foretaste of foreseeable futures is that hitherto even the most contrived and expedient Security Council resolutions are preambled invoking a litany of dubiously applicable Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and international law. In the case of the Gaza hodgepodge this is missing, because in every sense its contents were unprecedented and flew in the face of the U.N. Charter.

Whether because they thought they were irrelevant or because they knew that the resolution defied every principle of international law and reversed all previous U.N. decisions, the Trump foreign policy team did not cite any such background—and the council members went along with their self-emasculation. They voted for the global equivalent of the Reichstag’s “enabling” act, whose essence was that the Führer is always right. In effect, those who voted for the resolution effectively abdicated their responsibilities as the Security Council to a marginally sane U.S. president.

Sadly, “eternal” principles are all too often actually ephemeral. Which brings us in a tortuous way to another consequence of the Israeli exception from international law. While it is true U.S. indulgence and European silence has enabled Israel in practice to rewrite international law, Israeli policy presents a contradictory combination of being reckless about the consequences of their deeds but acutely aware of the future prospects created by them. 

In the last column we mentioned the trial balloons being floated at the other end of the Sahara about enlisting Morocco to provide a home in Western Sahara for the displaced Palestinians from Gaza They raised puzzling questions about self-determination and boundaries not least since Morocco would thus house Palestinian expellees in a territory from which the Moroccan Kingdom has previously expelled the native Sahrawis, thus emulating and anticipating how the Gazans might be cast out into the wilderness by an unprincipled Security Council. The combined power of Israel, France, the U.S. and Morocco, with the lickspittle support of the UK, persuaded many African countries to overlook their own principles of self-determination in Western Sahara.

THE SHIPWRECK OF SOMALIA

Which brings us by easy stages to Somaliland. The International Court of Justice and successive United Nations resolutions have sanctified the principle of national self-determination, but this can fly in the face of the African Union avowal of the sanctity of the colonial boundaries. This is the pragmatic position rather than a principled one, because it would be difficult to justify the lines in the sand or in the jungles drawn by European imperial powers that determined so many boundaries in Africa and elsewhere, with no regard for local self-determination. However, in practice, if those arbitrary markings were questioned, the resulting maelstrom of border conflicts would lead to even more mayhem in the beleaguered continent.

Ironically Somalia is one of the few states that meets Western definitions of a nation-state. Its people speak one language, they share one religion and they live contiguously in one tract of territory. 

Incidentally Somalia is a member of the Arab League despite not being culturally or linguistically Arab. It has been an exemplar of a failed state for decades as Great Power rivalries tore the strategically located territory apart. As it happens because of the regional rotation system Somalia is on the Security Council despite its diminished capacity to rule itself. But “Somaliland,” roughly coterminous with the former British Somaliland, has contrived a separate, relatively successful, existence, with independent elections and administration in contrast to the banditry and anarchy of the Somali “motherland.” 

However, it has not secured the talismanic international recognition. Pragmatically, there should be no compulsion for the people of Somaliland to “rejoin” a Somalia with which they only had brief and unrewarding unity. The international community does not call on Austria to reunite with Germany because of a shared language and culture. By all means one should encourage unification, but it should be on a basis of a popular demand, which appears to be lacking here.

I should perhaps acknowledge an interest. In my youth I was a member of the Somali Seaman’s social club in Liverpool and close friends with some of the local community leaders, who, as well as being fond of a pint, were intensely proud when Somali became the official written language in 1972. We even had a premier of the first Somali language feature film—with celebratory drinks afterwards. Of course, subsequent events were disappointing, in downward parallel with developing repression followed by anarchy in Somalia, but as far as I can glean, the attachment to Somaliland that developed was more the affection that shipwreck survivors show to a lifeboat than any deep regional or ethnic nationalism.

So, enter Israel, which like a stopped clock, stepped into the breach with an offer of recognition when no one else would. The Israelis had played the same game with Kosovo and Serbia, trading recognition for an embassy in Jerusalem. Serbia, on firmer ground, reneged on the Trump-brokered deal, helped because the expedient Palestinian Authority had welcomed Slobodan Milošević and scorned their alleged Muslim brothers in Pristina, which, of course paralleled Palestine’s fruitless wooing of Morocco over Polisario. But then Israel picks its enemies carefully and does not care to antagonize Beijing, by recognizing Taiwan, although that apparently did not inhibit it from cooperation with Kuomintang Taiwan and Apartheid South Africa in a joint nuclear weapon development project.

Readers might notice a common thread here—of cynical expedient opportunism eroding principles.

All states look to their self-interest. Robin Cook, who was the British Labour Party foreign secretary back in the day when his country and his party had some vestiges of an independent and principled foreign policy, was often misquoted as espousing an ethical foreign policy. On the contrary, he recognized that the concept was almost an oxymoron and stressed that foreign policy should have an “ethical dimension,” which nowadays seems to have sunk into a Trumpian black hole.

NEXT U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL

Which brings us back to how the Gaza decision has so thoroughly corroded one of the U.N.’s unspectacular but essential roles—as an ethical standard bearer for global affairs. At the core of that is the role of the “secular Pope,” the U.N. Secretary General. It has to be said that António Guterres has been in a self-administered pre-retirement program for that ethical function almost since he took office. His vacuous pronouncements are reminiscent of what was said about his predecessor, Pérez de Cuéllar: “if he fell in the lake, there wouldn’t be a splash.”

In these parlous times for the U.N.’s future, and for the people that depend on its attenuated lifeline, the selection of a new Secretary General has even more than usual significance. Note: “selection” not election. This year, candidates must be nominated by their governments, and by several customary constraints, they will not be from one of the permanent five countries but probably be from Latin America or the Caribbean, and in recent years popular pressure has been building up for a female candidate. However, Donald Trump has a veto and is likely to regard that as a forbidden diversity hire!

Among the putative candidates, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina is indeed Latin American but not female, yet his selling point with Trump could be his ability to provide a tenuous nuclear casus belli against (for example) Iran. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is suspected by people in her agency of having unacknowledged Israeli citizenship, which in these confusing days could be a plus (with Trump) and a resounding negative for others. Her age, at 70, would have told against her once, but in the Trump/Biden gerontocratic era might be a selling point. Trump’s role is crucial, and so unless the General Assembly members find the vertebrae that the Security Council members have mislaid—or if, like Roman Emperor Caligula, he nominates his horse for the position—we cannot expect much kickback from other members. 

In short the future of the U.N. looks gloomy.

U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is president of the Foreign Press Association of the U.S. He is the author of U.N.told: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).

https://www.wrmea.org/north-america/a-gloomy-future-for-u.n.-as-ethical-standard-bearer-for-global-affairs.html

 

A Gloomy Future for U.N. as “Ethical Standard Bearer” for Global Affairs 

IAN WILLIAMS

REGIONS

NORTH AMERICA

POSTED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2026

People stage a protest in Mogadishu to express support for the country’s territorial integrity following Israel's recognition of Somaliland, on Jan. 7, 2026. Demonstrators carrying Somali flags chanted slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel. (ABUUKAR MOHAMED MUHIDIN/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2026, pp. 14-16

United Nations Report

By Ian Williams

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE on the Security Council, the Palestinians’ only hope is that their enemies, like Binyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, implode under the pressure of their own amoral incompetence. It is not only the tortured people of Gaza and the West who pay the price for the perfidy and invertebracy of the U.N. Security Council members, but the people of the world.

As we said when Security Council Resolution 2803 was “passed” like a groaning bowel movement, the Gaza “ceasefire” agreement  was more of an instrument of unconditional surrender to Trump and Netanyahu than it was a viable peace plan. The continuing death toll in the Strip, not to mention in the West Bank, totally vindicates our suspicions, which follow decades in which the U.S. condoned an Israeli opt out from international law and the hindrances of the U.N. Charter. 

Most U.N. watchers consider the Security Council veto to be a major impediment to the effectiveness of the organization, and one solution popular for some diplomats was a large increase in the number of permanent members with veto power. British diplomats, for their own self-evident motives, had maneuvered the title of the agenda item from the “reform” of the Security Council to its “enlargement,” but then argued, on now eminently reasonable grounds, against all suggested changes. 

Enlargement was, as we have often pointed out, a self-serving obtuse answer to the wrong question, which is not how to make the Security Council into a more “representative” job creation scheme for diplomats, but rather how to make it more effective. Doubling the number of veto holders is manifestly a way to put rocks in the cogs.

REWRITING INTERNATIONAL LAW

Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the revived corpse of George W. Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” goes to the opposite extreme. The president doubles as Secretary General by deciding who can be on the board and what goes on the agenda—and then has a veto on any decisions.

A foretaste of foreseeable futures is that hitherto even the most contrived and expedient Security Council resolutions are preambled invoking a litany of dubiously applicable Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and international law. In the case of the Gaza hodgepodge this is missing, because in every sense its contents were unprecedented and flew in the face of the U.N. Charter.

Whether because they thought they were irrelevant or because they knew that the resolution defied every principle of international law and reversed all previous U.N. decisions, the Trump foreign policy team did not cite any such background—and the council members went along with their self-emasculation. They voted for the global equivalent of the Reichstag’s “enabling” act, whose essence was that the Führer is always right. In effect, those who voted for the resolution effectively abdicated their responsibilities as the Security Council to a marginally sane U.S. president.

Sadly, “eternal” principles are all too often actually ephemeral. Which brings us in a tortuous way to another consequence of the Israeli exception from international law. While it is true U.S. indulgence and European silence has enabled Israel in practice to rewrite international law, Israeli policy presents a contradictory combination of being reckless about the consequences of their deeds but acutely aware of the future prospects created by them. 

In the last column we mentioned the trial balloons being floated at the other end of the Sahara about enlisting Morocco to provide a home in Western Sahara for the displaced Palestinians from Gaza They raised puzzling questions about self-determination and boundaries not least since Morocco would thus house Palestinian expellees in a territory from which the Moroccan Kingdom has previously expelled the native Sahrawis, thus emulating and anticipating how the Gazans might be cast out into the wilderness by an unprincipled Security Council. The combined power of Israel, France, the U.S. and Morocco, with the lickspittle support of the UK, persuaded many African countries to overlook their own principles of self-determination in Western Sahara.

THE SHIPWRECK OF SOMALIA

Which brings us by easy stages to Somaliland. The International Court of Justice and successive United Nations resolutions have sanctified the principle of national self-determination, but this can fly in the face of the African Union avowal of the sanctity of the colonial boundaries. This is the pragmatic position rather than a principled one, because it would be difficult to justify the lines in the sand or in the jungles drawn by European imperial powers that determined so many boundaries in Africa and elsewhere, with no regard for local self-determination. However, in practice, if those arbitrary markings were questioned, the resulting maelstrom of border conflicts would lead to even more mayhem in the beleaguered continent.

Ironically Somalia is one of the few states that meets Western definitions of a nation-state. Its people speak one language, they share one religion and they live contiguously in one tract of territory. 

Incidentally Somalia is a member of the Arab League despite not being culturally or linguistically Arab. It has been an exemplar of a failed state for decades as Great Power rivalries tore the strategically located territory apart. As it happens because of the regional rotation system Somalia is on the Security Council despite its diminished capacity to rule itself. But “Somaliland,” roughly coterminous with the former British Somaliland, has contrived a separate, relatively successful, existence, with independent elections and administration in contrast to the banditry and anarchy of the Somali “motherland.” 

However, it has not secured the talismanic international recognition. Pragmatically, there should be no compulsion for the people of Somaliland to “rejoin” a Somalia with which they only had brief and unrewarding unity. The international community does not call on Austria to reunite with Germany because of a shared language and culture. By all means one should encourage unification, but it should be on a basis of a popular demand, which appears to be lacking here.

I should perhaps acknowledge an interest. In my youth I was a member of the Somali Seaman’s social club in Liverpool and close friends with some of the local community leaders, who, as well as being fond of a pint, were intensely proud when Somali became the official written language in 1972. We even had a premier of the first Somali language feature film—with celebratory drinks afterwards. Of course, subsequent events were disappointing, in downward parallel with developing repression followed by anarchy in Somalia, but as far as I can glean, the attachment to Somaliland that developed was more the affection that shipwreck survivors show to a lifeboat than any deep regional or ethnic nationalism.

So, enter Israel, which like a stopped clock, stepped into the breach with an offer of recognition when no one else would. The Israelis had played the same game with Kosovo and Serbia, trading recognition for an embassy in Jerusalem. Serbia, on firmer ground, reneged on the Trump-brokered deal, helped because the expedient Palestinian Authority had welcomed Slobodan Milošević and scorned their alleged Muslim brothers in Pristina, which, of course paralleled Palestine’s fruitless wooing of Morocco over Polisario. But then Israel picks its enemies carefully and does not care to antagonize Beijing, by recognizing Taiwan, although that apparently did not inhibit it from cooperation with Kuomintang Taiwan and Apartheid South Africa in a joint nuclear weapon development project.

Readers might notice a common thread here—of cynical expedient opportunism eroding principles.

All states look to their self-interest. Robin Cook, who was the British Labour Party foreign secretary back in the day when his country and his party had some vestiges of an independent and principled foreign policy, was often misquoted as espousing an ethical foreign policy. On the contrary, he recognized that the concept was almost an oxymoron and stressed that foreign policy should have an “ethical dimension,” which nowadays seems to have sunk into a Trumpian black hole.

NEXT U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL

Which brings us back to how the Gaza decision has so thoroughly corroded one of the U.N.’s unspectacular but essential roles—as an ethical standard bearer for global affairs. At the core of that is the role of the “secular Pope,” the U.N. Secretary General. It has to be said that António Guterres has been in a self-administered pre-retirement program for that ethical function almost since he took office. His vacuous pronouncements are reminiscent of what was said about his predecessor, Pérez de Cuéllar: “if he fell in the lake, there wouldn’t be a splash.”

In these parlous times for the U.N.’s future, and for the people that depend on its attenuated lifeline, the selection of a new Secretary General has even more than usual significance. Note: “selection” not election. This year, candidates must be nominated by their governments, and by several customary constraints, they will not be from one of the permanent five countries but probably be from Latin America or the Caribbean, and in recent years popular pressure has been building up for a female candidate. However, Donald Trump has a veto and is likely to regard that as a forbidden diversity hire!

Among the putative candidates, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina is indeed Latin 

A Gloomy Future for U.N. as “Ethical Standard Bearer” for Global Affairs

IAN WILLIAMS REGIONS NORTH AMERICA POSTED ON FEBRUARY 8, 2026

People stage a protest in Mogadishu to express support for the country’s territorial integrity following Israel's recognition of Somaliland, on Jan. 7, 2026. Demonstrators carrying Somali flags chanted slogans against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel. (ABUUKAR MOHAMED MUHIDIN/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2026, pp. 14-16

United Nations Report

By Ian Williams

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE on the Security Council, the Palestinians’ only hope is that their enemies, like Binyamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, implode under the pressure of their own amoral incompetence. It is not only the tortured people of Gaza and the West who pay the price for the perfidy and invertebracy of the U.N. Security Council members, but the people of the world.

As we said when Security Council Resolution 2803 was “passed” like a groaning bowel movement, the Gaza “ceasefire” agreement  was more of an instrument of unconditional surrender to Trump and Netanyahu than it was a viable peace plan. The continuing death toll in the Strip, not to mention in the West Bank, totally vindicates our suspicions, which follow decades in which the U.S. condoned an Israeli opt out from international law and the hindrances of the U.N. Charter. 

Most U.N. watchers consider the Security Council veto to be a major impediment to the effectiveness of the organization, and one solution popular for some diplomats was a large increase in the number of permanent members with veto power. British diplomats, for their own self-evident motives, had maneuvered the title of the agenda item from the “reform” of the Security Council to its “enlargement,” but then argued, on now eminently reasonable grounds, against all suggested changes. 

Enlargement was, as we have often pointed out, a self-serving obtuse answer to the wrong question, which is not how to make the Security Council into a more “representative” job creation scheme for diplomats, but rather how to make it more effective. Doubling the number of veto holders is manifestly a way to put rocks in the cogs.

REWRITING INTERNATIONAL LAW

Trump’s “Board of Peace,” the revived corpse of George W. Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” goes to the opposite extreme. The president doubles as Secretary General by deciding who can be on the board and what goes on the agenda—and then has a veto on any decisions.

A foretaste of foreseeable futures is that hitherto even the most contrived and expedient Security Council resolutions are preambled invoking a litany of dubiously applicable Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and international law. In the case of the Gaza hodgepodge this is missing, because in every sense its contents were unprecedented and flew in the face of the U.N. Charter.

Whether because they thought they were irrelevant or because they knew that the resolution defied every principle of international law and reversed all previous U.N. decisions, the Trump foreign policy team did not cite any such background—and the council members went along with their self-emasculation. They voted for the global equivalent of the Reichstag’s “enabling” act, whose essence was that the Führer is always right. In effect, those who voted for the resolution effectively abdicated their responsibilities as the Security Council to a marginally sane U.S. president.

Sadly, “eternal” principles are all too often actually ephemeral. Which brings us in a tortuous way to another consequence of the Israeli exception from international law. While it is true U.S. indulgence and European silence has enabled Israel in practice to rewrite international law, Israeli policy presents a contradictory combination of being reckless about the consequences of their deeds but acutely aware of the future prospects created by them. 

In the last column we mentioned the trial balloons being floated at the other end of the Sahara about enlisting Morocco to provide a home in Western Sahara for the displaced Palestinians from Gaza They raised puzzling questions about self-determination and boundaries not least since Morocco would thus house Palestinian expellees in a territory from which the Moroccan Kingdom has previously expelled the native Sahrawis, thus emulating and anticipating how the Gazans might be cast out into the wilderness by an unprincipled Security Council. The combined power of Israel, France, the U.S. and Morocco, with the lickspittle support of the UK, persuaded many African countries to overlook their own principles of self-determination in Western Sahara.

THE SHIPWRECK OF SOMALIA

Which brings us by easy stages to Somaliland. The International Court of Justice and successive United Nations resolutions have sanctified the principle of national self-determination, but this can fly in the face of the African Union avowal of the sanctity of the colonial boundaries. This is the pragmatic position rather than a principled one, because it would be difficult to justify the lines in the sand or in the jungles drawn by European imperial powers that determined so many boundaries in Africa and elsewhere, with no regard for local self-determination. However, in practice, if those arbitrary markings were questioned, the resulting maelstrom of border conflicts would lead to even more mayhem in the beleaguered continent.

Ironically Somalia is one of the few states that meets Western definitions of a nation-state. Its people speak one language, they share one religion and they live contiguously in one tract of territory. 

Incidentally Somalia is a member of the Arab League despite not being culturally or linguistically Arab. It has been an exemplar of a failed state for decades as Great Power rivalries tore the strategically located territory apart. As it happens because of the regional rotation system Somalia is on the Security Council despite its diminished capacity to rule itself. But “Somaliland,” roughly coterminous with the former British Somaliland, has contrived a separate, relatively successful, existence, with independent elections and administration in contrast to the banditry and anarchy of the Somali “motherland.” 

However, it has not secured the talismanic international recognition. Pragmatically, there should be no compulsion for the people of Somaliland to “rejoin” a Somalia with which they only had brief and unrewarding unity. The international community does not call on Austria to reunite with Germany because of a shared language and culture. By all means one should encourage unification, but it should be on a basis of a popular demand, which appears to be lacking here.

I should perhaps acknowledge an interest. In my youth I was a member of the Somali Seaman’s social club in Liverpool and close friends with some of the local community leaders, who, as well as being fond of a pint, were intensely proud when Somali became the official written language in 1972. We even had a premier of the first Somali language feature film—with celebratory drinks afterwards. Of course, subsequent events were disappointing, in downward parallel with developing repression followed by anarchy in Somalia, but as far as I can glean, the attachment to Somaliland that developed was more the affection that shipwreck survivors show to a lifeboat than any deep regional or ethnic nationalism.

So, enter Israel, which like a stopped clock, stepped into the breach with an offer of recognition when no one else would. The Israelis had played the same game with Kosovo and Serbia, trading recognition for an embassy in Jerusalem. Serbia, on firmer ground, reneged on the Trump-brokered deal, helped because the expedient Palestinian Authority had welcomed Slobodan Milošević and scorned their alleged Muslim brothers in Pristina, which, of course paralleled Palestine’s fruitless wooing of Morocco over Polisario. But then Israel picks its enemies carefully and does not care to antagonize Beijing, by recognizing Taiwan, although that apparently did not inhibit it from cooperation with Kuomintang Taiwan and Apartheid South Africa in a joint nuclear weapon development project.

Readers might notice a common thread here—of cynical expedient opportunism eroding principles.

All states look to their self-interest. Robin Cook, who was the British Labour Party foreign secretary back in the day when his country and his party had some vestiges of an independent and principled foreign policy, was often misquoted as espousing an ethical foreign policy. On the contrary, he recognized that the concept was almost an oxymoron and stressed that foreign policy should have an “ethical dimension,” which nowadays seems to have sunk into a Trumpian black hole.

NEXT U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL

Which brings us back to how the Gaza decision has so thoroughly corroded one of the U.N.’s unspectacular but essential roles—as an ethical standard bearer for global affairs. At the core of that is the role of the “secular Pope,” the U.N. Secretary General. It has to be said that António Guterres has been in a self-administered pre-retirement program for that ethical function almost since he took office. His vacuous pronouncements are reminiscent of what was said about his predecessor, Pérez de Cuéllar: “if he fell in the lake, there wouldn’t be a splash.”

In these parlous times for the U.N.’s future, and for the people that depend on its attenuated lifeline, the selection of a new Secretary General has even more than usual significance. Note: “selection” not election. This year, candidates must be nominated by their governments, and by several customary constraints, they will not be from one of the permanent five countries but probably be from Latin America or the Caribbean, and in recent years popular pressure has been building up for a female candidate. However, Donald Trump has a veto and is likely to regard that as a forbidden diversity hire!

Among the putative candidates, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina is indeed Latin American but not female, yet his selling point with Trump could be his ability to provide a tenuous nuclear casus belli against (for example) Iran. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is suspected by people in her agency of having unacknowledged Israeli citizenship, which in these confusing days could be a plus (with Trump) and a resounding negative for others. Her age, at 70, would have told against her once, but in the Trump/Biden gerontocratic era might be a selling point. Trump’s role is crucial, and so unless the General Assembly members find the vertebrae that the Security Council members have mislaid—or if, like Roman Emperor Caligula, he nominates his horse for the position—we cannot expect much kickback from other members. 

In short the future of the U.N. looks gloomy.

Trumping Venezuelan Opposition

 For the FPA, I  interviewed Diego Arria Former President of the United Nations Security Council, former Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations and an opposition leader

Ian Williams:

Good afternoon. I am Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association. It is a pleasure to speak again with Diego Arria, a former President of the United Nations Security Council and a long standing advocate for international accountability.

Diego, we previously worked closely during periods of crisis, including conflicts in the Balkans, when you consistently pressed the United Nations to act decisively rather than rely on procedural language. When we last spoke, you were still processing the shock of recent developments in Venezuela. You expressed relief at the removal of Nicolás Maduro, but also concern regarding what would follow, particularly with respect to governance, legitimacy, and the role of the United States.

How have your views evolved since our last conversation?

 

Initial Reactions and Shifting Perceptions

Diego Arria:

My initial reaction was one of surprise. At first, I believed President Trump was acting as a liberator rather than a conqueror. Many Venezuelans shared that view. For the first time, we felt that an American president was taking Venezuela seriously.

However, that perception has changed. President Trump now speaks almost exclusively about oil. He does not speak about democracy or freedom. Those words are absent from his statements. Oil dominates the narrative. Venezuela is more than oil!

Today, we have more than one thousand political prisoners. Instead of prioritizing their liberation, the President speaks publicly about securing tens of millions of barrels of oil. That contrast is deeply troubling.

 

Sanctions and the International Order

Ian Williams:

It appears that the United States is attempting to impose sanctions unilaterally, in a manner similar to the Iraq sanctions regime. That regime proved disastrous and contributed to the erosion of the international system. Is this a fair comparison?

Diego Arria:

Yes, it is a fair comparison. Matters worsened when the United States effectively endorsed Delcy Rodríguez, formerly Maduro’s vice president. She claimed to be in communication with Washington and willing to follow instructions from the White House.

Yet she remains surrounded by the same criminal networks. Many of these individuals are already sanctioned by the United States, with some listed for financial rewards. Only weeks earlier, these same figures were publicly labeled narco-terrorists by United States officials. Now they are portrayed as acceptable partners in a so-called transition. That contradiction is deeply alarming.

 

Continuity of Power Structures

Ian Williams:

In effect, the central figure has been removed, but the same power structure remains intact?

Diego Arria:

That is correct. If President Trump claims that Venezuela is under his control, then he bears responsibility for what happens next. Why are political prisoners still detained? Why do figures such as Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López remain in power?

They openly attack the United States while simultaneously being described as partners. This is extremely difficult to reconcile.

 

Oil Versus Democratic Reform

Ian Williams:

Does this suggest a purely transactional approach, one in which repression is tolerated as long as oil continues to flow?

Diego Arria:

Oil has always shaped Venezuela’s history. However, we were once a functioning democracy with a meaningful role in international affairs. That was destroyed by a criminal structure.

It is deeply ironic that those once described as terrorists by United States officials are now treated as legitimate counterparts. No one would have accepted defeating Nazi Germany while leaving its leadership structure intact. Yet that is effectively what is happening in Venezuela.

 

Repression and Public Fear

Ian Williams:

Why, then, are there no mass demonstrations in Venezuela following these events?

Diego Arria:

Because repression has intensified. Since President Trump declared himself in charge, security forces have actively pursued anyone suspected of supporting United States policy. People are imprisoned for social media posts. The situation has deteriorated, not improved.

 

Power Dynamics Within the Government

Ian Williams:

Is there evidence of a private understanding or a side deal between Washington and Delcy Rodríguez?

Diego Arria:

She has no independent power. Real authority lies with the military leadership, specifically Padrino López and Cabello. Without the armed forces, she cannot govern.

Ironically, President Trump once dismissed opposition leaders for lacking military support. Now he appears to believe Rodríguez can resist military pressure. I see no basis for that assumption.

 

Military Calculations

Ian Williams:

Could pragmatic elements within the armed forces reach an accommodation with the United States in order to preserve their interests?

Diego Arria:

That has long been our hope. However, the population sees the same figures on television, unchanged. After years of suffering, people remain silent in their homes.

 

Opposition Leadership and International Optics

Ian Williams:

María Corina Machado has publicly praised President Trump and even suggested support for a Nobel Peace Prize and even offered to pass on her own.. Has this damaged the opposition’s international standing?

Diego Arria:

I have not discussed this with her directly, but I understand the political calculation. When only one leader appears willing to act, there is pressure to maintain that support.

However, this approach is risky. President Trump may focus solely on symbolic recognition rather than Venezuela’s democratic legitimacy, which rests with President elect Edmundo González, who received the votes.

 

Humanitarian and Legal Concerns

Ian Williams:

There are also serious humanitarian and legal concerns, including extrajudicial actions at sea. Can this realistically be described as an intervention for the benefit of Venezuelans?

Diego Arria:

From a legal perspective, these actions violate international law. Some argue that when confronting narco terrorist groups, traditional legal frameworks no longer apply. That argument is dangerous, but it is being used to justify current actions.å

 

Risks to the Opposition

Ian Williams:

History shows that such tactics often strengthen extremist forces by alienating the population. Does this create new risks for the democratic opposition?

Diego Arria:

Precisely. If President Trump claims to rule Venezuela while allowing the same criminal structure to operate freely, repression will intensify. That is what we are witnessing.

 

Looking Ahead

Ian Williams:

What happens next? Where does the opposition go from here?

Diego Arria:

Much depends on upcoming meetings in Washington over the next few days. At that point, the direction should become clearer. Until then, it would be premature to speculate.

 

Closing Remarks

Ian Williams:

We will conclude here for now. Thank you for joining us, Diego. Shall we reconvene once there is greater clarity?

Diego Arria:

Thank you, Ian. I wish I had more definitive answers, but at present, none of us does.

 

Footnotes

1. Diego Arria served as President of the United Nations Security Council in nineteen ninety two and has been a vocal advocate for international action in humanitarian crises.
   
2. The term Cartel de los Soles refers to allegations of organized drug trafficking involving senior Venezuelan officials, documented in multiple international investigations.
   
3. The comparison to Iraq era sanctions reflects widely acknowledged humanitarian consequences and long term damage to the international system.
   
4. Edmundo González Urrutia was recognized by the Venezuelan opposition as the winner of the most recent presidential election, despite the official results announced by the Maduro government.