That the United Nations is dysfunctional, overly bureaucratic, and far too often hostile to U.S. interests is axiomatic. Successive scandals in recent years have further discredited it. But more troubling for Americans is the fact that as recently as two years ago, the vast majority of the biggest recipients of U.S. foreign aid took positions in opposition to the United States in UN votes more than half of the time. Israel, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the striking exception. In fact, Jerusalem agreed with U.S. votes 97 percent of the time.
It is also obvious that despite tough talk and political rhetoric, the powers that be in Washington have failed to do anything about the UN’s devolution into what can reasonably be described as a trans-border forum for hostility toward the United States. Americans consistently express their disappointment at this state of affairs. Gallup polling on American attitudes toward the UN reveals that for the past five years slightly more than 70 percent believe the UN is doing a poor job in trying to solve the problems it faces.·
"Though the UN was founded on a positive, anticipatory hope for global cooperation for peace the organization has been severely tarnished by numerous improprieties including corruption surrounding the 1990s Iraqi "Oil for Food" scheme and the ignominy of successive revelations that within the past decade UN peacekeepers in Africa had sold weapons to warring militia and traded food for sex with underage girls.
After years of contentious hearings, however, a bill that rectifies America’s lack of control over how its UN contributions are spent and requires real reform of the UN’s opaque bureaucracy is making its way through Congress. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (photo left), the Chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, has introduced HR 2829, the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act.·
The Act, which would empower the United States to choose which UN agencies and programs to pay for, has 137 co-sponsors and has already passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee. For many Americans, it might come as a shock to learn that our massive contributions to the UN budget have never given the United States the power to decide which projects to fund. In fact, as it has stood, America has been committed to funding a huge permanent percentage of all UN activities. It seems safe to say that if a referendum were held in any U.S. Congressional district, an overwhelming majority would support, at the very least, giving the United States the ability to pick and choose which UN efforts to deem worthy of bankrolling. After all, in 2010, American taxpayers shelled out more than $7.7 billion to the United Nations.·
Was this money well spent? Considering that the UN acts as a kangaroo court where despotic and authoritarian regimes, such as Cuba, China, and Saudi Arabia, are leading members of the UN Human Rights Council, the answer is profoundly not. As recently as last year, Libya, with Gaddafi still in power, was elected to the Human Rights Council. What’s worse is these regimes’ use of the Turtle Bay rostrum to pontificate on the West’s failings while blocking resolutions meant to curb the planet’s worst rights abusers.
Provisions in the Act would require the U.S. to withhold its portion of funding for the council until the State Department certifies that the Human Rights Council does not include countries that are subject to Security Council sanctions, under Security Council mandated human-rights investigations, state sponsors of terrorism or suspected of religious freedom violations.
Further, conditions would be applied to the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and other questionable UN initiatives. UNRWA was set up exclusively for Palestinian refugees from 1948 and still operating 63 years later, never having advanced an initiative for resettlement but, in fact, serving as a support group for these Palestinians de facto status as permanent refugees. Flaunting U.S. concerns, UNRWA has knowingly hired Hamas members and allows the teaching of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement to children. Hamas, with American blood on its hands, has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations for nearly two decades yet the U.S. government continues to fund UNRWA.
Last month, Amb. Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the UN, told Congress that the Act would threaten to undercut U.S. influence at the UN, and ignores the "significant and sustained success" the U.S. has had in pushing for reforms. Rice’s testimony is but part of a concerted Obama administration campaign to block the Act from becoming law. Thus far, it has been successful. Not one Democrat has signed on to it a fact that will not impeded its passage by the full House but will likely doom it to fail in the Senate.
Contrary to the doom and gloom preached by the UN’s champions, greater control over how U.S. contributions are spent would increase America’s influence while raising American taxpayer’s perception of the UN. After all, it is their contribution that underwrites the UN itself. Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen’s effort is a reasoned approach toward making the UN, in spite of itself, more effective.
James Colbert is Policy Director at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
