And yet that multilateralism has its limits

Angela Merkel, Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Poutine: German Chancellor and the French and Russian Presidents have continued, Compiègne, large international manoeuvres commenced the week Saturday last in New York, at the opening of the general debate of the United Nations. And, if the scene changes, the menu of discussions are the same in a few shades close: the response to the crises which tend to multiply in the world, from Africa to Asia, the Middle East to Europe. To respond, the United Nations, responsible in principle for the maintenance of peace and security in the world, are increasingly called to the rescue, even if the means provided to the organization does not allow them to be the "fire of the world". The United Nations is currently leading 18 peacekeeping operations of the peace on four continents, employing 90,000 people from quota of 108 countries. Currently, only the United States have more staff on the ground that the international organization. And yet, that multilateralism has its limits. Last week, in New York, Kofi Annan, who left his duties as Secretary-General of the United Nations after two terms of five years, has warned leaders on the risks today to the international organization. In a speech will, the Ghanaian diplomat said that the world faced "divisions that threaten the concept of international community". This concept is the foundation of the United Nations and the multilateral system born from the ashes of the second world war. In a paradox of history, this threat occurs while the United Nations, the major difference of the society of Nations (SDN) of the world war après-Première, has become almost universal. 192 countries on the 193 States officially recognized in the world (with the exception, therefore, of the Vatican, which has observer status) participate in the 61st annual general meeting, whose kick gave Tuesday the opening of the "general debate" last 15 days between the leaders of the world. This "universal" does civilization shocks or crises among its members. Certainly, the number of wars between States and civil wars have declined over the past ten years, in part likely the role of the United Nations. But the world is undergoing four serious conflicts that, at any time, can serve as a catalyst for other crises and feed tensions between major powers. The first conflict is Sudan, where the Darfur region is threatened by a humanitarian catastrophe and where lies, in the background, the rivalry between the United States and China, which imports of Sudan's oil. The other conflict is a nuclear proliferation crisis: on one side the Iran and the other the United States and the Western powers. But here, too, the Russia and, likely, China play their own game, while the France by the voice of Jacques Chirac pleaded for the resumption of a dialogue. In the Lebanon, after a month of war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, plays another complex part, the Iran and the Syria on the one hand, the major Western powers on the other. The fourth conflict, that between Israel and the Palestinians, is certainly the ferment of other crises. Last week, Kofi Annan, recalled that no other in the world "is a symbolic and emotional support also strong among people located so far from battlefield." Since the creation in 1948, his first peace operation the Organization of the United Nations responsible for the supervision of the Truce (UNTSO) after the Arab-Israeli war the United Nations remained powerless in the region. This list of conflicts, must be added the threat of a civil war in Iraq, three years after the American and British intervention in the country, the recent resumption of fighting between Allied forces and the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the extension of the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire. He finally added and especially, outside any geographical framework, terrorism, which, as even noted Kofi Annan, is relatively little victims but generalizes a sense of insecurity in the world. At the time of international migration and the cohabitation of millions of people of different religions in the same country, this terrorist threat increases the feeling of suspicion of Muslim communities and promotes the risk of a "clash of civilizations".

In this divided world, the United Nations is finally that the sum of its 192 Member divisions. Thus, a few hours away, the American Presidents, George w. Bush, and Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, engaged at the rostrum of the United Nations, last week, in a real verbal duel, while carefully avoiding to the corridors of the United Nations in New York. The first accused Tehran leaders to use the Iran resources to fund terrorism. The second referred to the US "occupiers" in Iraq and "aggressors". At the same forum, Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, has him, denounced a Zionist conspiracy to dismember his country and plunder its resources. Its main purpose was to prevent the deployment of peacekeepers under colours of the United Nations in Darfur and to maintain a force ineffective or means of the African Union.

And yet, more than ever, the world needs the United Nations. New York, President Chirac was correct to reaffirm "the importance of collective action" and to defend the Organization "as an instrument of this collective action." The President of the Italian Council, Romano Prodi in a critique veiled to the decision of the United States to go to war without the mandate of the United Nations in Iraq, has also defended the notion of "multilateralism". "No single country, regardless of its power, can face alone the challenges" of the contemporary world. The will of the Europeans, French, Italian or German, form the backbone of the Lebanon, the reinforced UNIFIL, United Nations interim force is a positive sign of the will to act collectively. As countries like China, the Turkey, the Indonesia, the Qatar also pledged to provide troops, making good a major multilateral operation. It is a glimmer, but it would take much more to achieve the ultimate objective of the Charter of the United Nations: "preserve future generations from the scourge of war". It is still far away.