Meanwhile the objectives that the UN still espouses, including its latest millennium development goals, read like a left-wing manifesto from the 1960s. Bolton’s scepticism towards the end-poverty-through-massive-aid orthodoxy is wholly justified. The UN has seen $600 billion blown on mostly counter-productive aid to Africa. The orthodoxy is out of date.
The world needs a United Nations but not necessarily the United Nations. The best news for the organisation is America’s sudden interest in its fate. The Bolton reforms may be partly mischievous but they are realpolitik. They expose the millennium goals as so much window dressing. Nor is it any longer sensible to imagine a UN functioning as a military or economic activist without the commitment of its richest member. The UN claque can abuse America all it likes. It will not help. The biggest threat to the UN is not Bolton but that Bolton will fail and Washington will walk away again. Unless a miracle occurs between now and next week, the threat is real.
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