Wednesday, August 30, 2006
US Refusal to Isolate Iran   Anne Bayefsky
U.S.-Iran policy, spearheaded by Nicholas Burns and Secretary of State Rice, is a train to nowheresville, literally. That's what the world will look like (starting with the hole in the ground that was once Israel) when Iran has acquired nuclear weapons. Iran has no intention of stopping its nuclear weapons program voluntarily. Only a program of serious consequences, swiftly implemented, in response to its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction will prevent the catastrophe that looms before us.

We know that serious sanctions will not be forthcoming through the U.N. Security Council. China and Russia have made their views on the subject quite clear. But let's replay the words of Secretary Rice on May 10, 2006. Either Iran can accept a path to a civil nuclear program, she said, or "Iran can defy the international community and face isolation." And again on May 31, 2006: "It's a moment of truth for Iran." Tough talk - but the problem is that nobody takes American huffing and puffing seriously anymore.

Monday, August 14, 2006
UN Wins, Freedom Loses   Anne Bayefsky
The most frightening part of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 on the Lebanon war is that the United States agreed to allow the U.N. to play a pivotal role in the battle of our age - between democracy and terrorism, freedom and bondage, dignity and intolerance.

Kofi Annan's wide grin, as he stood side-by-side with Secretary Rice on Friday, said it all. He won. But America and freedom's cause lost.

At exactly the moment the "reformed" U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Israel - and only Israel - for the third time in two months, America cut a deal with the same U.N. to pin down the arms of the state on the front lines of democracy's war.

Why is the America that guards the right of self-defense so dearly willing to deny it, in effect, to the state of Israel? Why would America permit the U.N., which has systematically sided with Arab and Islamic states in their war against the Jews for half a century, to play-act as even-handed peacemaker? Why did the administration believe that denying Israel a win over Iranian proxies this time mean America is more likely to win over their Iranian bosses next time? Kofi Annan's wide grin, as he stood side-by-side with Secretary Rice on Friday, said it all. He won. But America and freedom's cause lost.

At exactly the moment the "reformed" U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Israel - and only Israel - for the third time in two months, America cut a deal with the same U.N. to pin down the arms of the state on the front lines of democracy's war.

Why is the America that guards the right of self-defense so dearly willing to deny it, in effect, to the state of Israel? Why would America permit the U.N., which has systematically sided with Arab and Islamic states in their war against the Jews for half a century, to play-act as even-handed peacemaker? Why did the administration believe that denying Israel a win over Iranian proxies this time mean America is more likely to win over their Iranian bosses next time?

Monday, August 07, 2006
The Political Arm of Hezbollah: The United Nations   Anne Bayefsky
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on the brink of handing President Bush the worst diplomatic disaster of his presidency. She is poised to agree to two United Nations resolutions that will tie the hands of both Israel and the United States in the war on terror and, in particular, inhibit future action on its number one state sponsor - Iran.

The catastrophe is the brainchild of Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has effectively turned the United Nations into the political wing of Hezbollah. Rice and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns are working furiously to satisfy a timetable dictated by Annan, not by the interests of the United States.

How did the United Nations become the forum for producing peace between Israel and its neighbors, which have rejected the Jewish state's existence for the past six decades? In the last three weeks, a multi-headed hydra of U.N. actors has risen to defeat Israel on the political battlefield in an unprecedented disregard of the U.N. Charter's central tenet: the right of self-defense.