The recent actions of the Obama administration and the UN Security Council have renewed calls for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations. The arguments for withdrawal are compelling and based on firm moral and practical considerations, but, so long as they leave the United Nations’ various organs intact, they will continue to wreak havoc in the world, unencumbered by our veto. American withdrawal will not reduce the United Nations’ mischief, but unleash it. Machiavelli addressed this when he wrote the passage quoted above, which can be summed up as, “never do an enemy a minor injury.”
The United Nations has two major organs that we must address. First there is the General Assembly, a vicious conglomeration of thuggish dictatorships, spineless social democracies and failing states. These countries unite only to attack the threats to their retention of power, or to deflect attention from how they wield it. This is why the vast majority of its condemnatory acts focus on the United States and Israel. The one good thing about the General Assembly is that it is utterly toothless; its resolutions carry no weight, and can be ignored without consequence. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Security Council.
