Past UN attempts at social engineering might preclude it from participation in post Saddam Iraq

The United Nations is seeking a role in post Saddam Iraq. The United States is saying that the UN should be limited to a humanitarian role, and Muslims have been pretty much silent on the issue. Who will govern Iraq, post Saddam, by almost any estimate, is a more important question than why the coalition went to war to dispose Hussein in the first place. Everything that made the war make sense to anyone is at stake in post Hussein Iraq, and everything that anyone feared, is now possible. Questions related to the freedom of the people and their economic empowerment and independence are linked very obviously to who the proposed leaders of this new nation will be. The success of an interim government is going to depend not only upon the political vision of Hussein’s successors, but also upon their ability to rally the people around that vision, to the extent that the Iraqi people will remain patient under perhaps extreme hardships and insecurity as things change. That means that Iraq’s new steward must have unquestionable credibility as well as the ability to make the dream happen. Unfortunately, the United Nations has not demonstrated either attribute.

In the late 1970s the United Nations convened a conference in Nairobi Kenya, known as the Nairobi conference. The working document for that conference is called the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies. The conference, convened by ECOSOC went almost unnoticed until the 1990s when the UN began its initiative to empower the world’s women under this same mandate, adapted from the Forward Looking Strategies. Anyone who has read that document recognizes right away that it is a blueprint for radical leftist social restructuring and economic schemes aimed at creating a global environment that is conducive not only to sustainable development, but which also requires government control over societies that truly mimics the third Reich. Few can forget the great amount of controversy created by the United Nation’s Draft Platform for Action, the controversial document wherein the United Nation’s detailed a list of actions designed to accelerate implementation of its controversial Nairobi Strategies. The Draft Platform for Action was drafted by a cadre of radical European feminists, and its primary objective according to the document, is to “eliminate all barriers to women’s economic empowerment.” These “barriers” as they are referred to within that document were identified as religion, and cultural tradition.

It is no secret that among all the outside players, the US, Europe and the UN, who have sought to impact the future of the Muslim world, the United Nations has been the most aggressive It has made significant achievements through various programs, most noticeably its programs aimed at Muslim women in developing counties that focus on population control, and women’s health. Through its various conferences it has sought to challenge on almost every level the traditional ideas that underlie religious thinking, and especially Islamic ideals, and as promised in the Strategies, women have been its primary targets. Muslims have not yet began to voice their heartfelt opinions about the fact that almost every atrocity that has affected the Muslim world in the latter part of the 20th century has occurred while the UN claimed to be an authoritative overseeing body that could and would insure safety and resolve political conflicts on behalf of the developing nations. Un! fortunately the UN has not been a sincere negotiator, and so its failures in Lebanon. It failed the Muslims of Bosnia, Kosovo, Palestine, and Algeria. It has never even taken up the issue of Egypt’s abusive tactics against voters who supported the opposition there, and has had absolutely nothing much to say about democratization in the Muslim world. For all intent and purpose, the UN has failed in almost every respect, and especially whenever it has been called upon to protect religious rights and freedoms. Its forums provide an impressive demonstration of international concern and diplomacy, but the reality looks more like Rwanda. Who will ever forget that the UN pulled out of Rwanda and allowed the tragic massacre that occurred to take place unchallenged. The UN claimed that its peacekeepers could not interfere in Bosnia because it was not safe, and the UN sought to protect their lives while the unarmed people were slaughtered. The UN was silent on Algeria, silent on Egypt! , silent when it was important that it demonstrate its capacity to function in scenarios that are unstable, and stressed by inter-communal conflicts.

There is no way possible that Muslims are likely to accept that post Hussein Iraq be governed by the United Nations, since it would be almost impossible for the various agencies that operate under UN authority to resist implementing their mandate there. Much of the resentment harbored against the United States by UN supporters, and the anti-war movement is the result of the United States unwillingness to submit to UN mandates, so imagine what might befall a resistant Iraq. The Iraqi people, who have no government to represent their desires and no political, or security apparatus or army to protect them from exploitation at the hands of secular social engineers, might come under extreme pressure to conform to UN objectives, should the UN oversee its transition. The people may have a vision or dream of their own. Rather than being interested in a staunchly secular liberal Iraq, where the society is transformed to accommodate same sex marriage, and where the definition of family is changed, where abortions are made available to young girls using devices that are made to self administer abortions, the people might be looking for true freedom, which includes religious freedom, and respect for their parental rights and cultural traditions, non of which are barriers to modernization. Until the UN denounces its controversial Strategies and proves that it is capable of functioning in real life scenarios where violence is possible, and where people have already well defined religious cultures, its participation should be limited to humanitarian assistance, and even then its participation should be managed and overseen by an independent interim Iraqi government.

The writer is the Founder and President of the National Association of Muslim American Women and host a weekly internet radio program at IBN.Net, named “A Civilizational Dialogue.” (1-2 PM each Wednesday). The author is also head of the International Assoc. for Muslim Women and Children, an accredited NGO with the UN Division on the Rights of the Palestinians.