Iraq debacle a boon to the UN.(Insider Report)

"[One] dreadful consequence of the open-ended Baghdad mission will be a steady and worsening hemorrhage of national power, wealth, and prestige.... Ultimately, those costs will prove too much for our nation to bear alone. In such fashion does swaggering imperialism set the stage for compelled interdependence.... It's reasonable to imagine a not-too-distant time when American servicemen and their families, weary of the burden of empire, would eagerly embrace transferring that burden to the UN."

THE NEW AMERICAN published those words in our June 30, 2003 issue, just weeks after President Bush's campaign advertisement photo-op visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln--the event at which he delivered a triumphal address in front of a huge banner declaring, "Mission Accomplished."

With U.S. troops dealing with insurrections across the length and breadth of Iraq, troop strength and morale being rapidly depleted, and the Iraq mission running out of money, the public is being subtly--but unmistakably--prepared to look to the UN for help. Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni (CFR), who has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, "said the United States must now rely on the UN to pull its 'chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq,'" reported the April 16 San Diego Union-Tribune. "We're betting on the UN, who we blew off and ridiculed ...