[thechat] what if ...

[Judah McAuley]

abbey wrote:
> On Mon February 17 2003 9:31 am, Erik Mattheis wrote:
>> US attacks Iraq w/o UN approval.
>> Iraq is a member of the UN.
>> Would other UN countries technically be obligated to retaliate against
>> the US?
>
> Or, what if the U.S. drops out of the UN and NATO?

It's unlikely, I think, that the US will drop out of the UN.  We've got
veto power there and there are too many of our economic interests that
we push through the UN (like WTO and IMF).  Dropping out of the UN would
jeopardize too many of our opportunities to mold other countries trade
laws to our liking.  Besides, we've already shown that we can drop out
of any treaty we don't like (witness the Kyoto Protocol and the ABM
treaty to name two).  Combine that with our willingness to do business
with countries that are doing lots of things in defiance of UN
resolutions (Isreal right now, Malaysia and many others in the past) and
our ability to withhold dues whenever we want and we've shown that the
UN is mostly a symbolic force to the US.  We mostly use it as a tool of
force against others and as an argument that we are being "multilateral".

Judah