Support Us, Or Else

Thalif Deen of Inter Press News Service implies that the unanimous backing of the UN Resolution condemning Iraq last week came about because of intense diplomatic and economic pressure from the United States. In other words, the US bribed countries into acquiescence. Deen writes,

Friday's unanimous vote in the U.N. Security Council supporting the U.S. resolution on weapons inspections in Iraq was a demonstration of Washington's ability to wield its vast political and economic power, say observers...

France, China and Russia, in almost a single voice, said they decided to back the resolution because of assurances by the United States that it would return to the Security Council before launching a military attack on Iraq...

But the 10 non-permanent members - Cameroon, Guinea, Mauritius, Bulgaria, Colombia, Mexico, Singapore, Norway, Ireland and Syria - voted under heavy diplomatic and economic pressure from the United States...

All these countries were seemingly aware of the fact that in 1990 the United States almost overnight cut about 70 million dollars in aid to Yemen immediately following its negative vote against a U.S. sponsored Security Council resolution to militarily oust Iraq from Kuwait...

''The Yemen precedent remains a vivid institutional memory at the United Nations,'' Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, told IPS.

Bennis said that just after that 1990 vote, the U.S. envoy turned to the Yemeni ambassador and told him that his vote would be ''the most expensive 'no' vote you would ever cast''. The United States then promptly cut the entire 70 million dollar U.S. aid budget to Yemen...

Could any of these countries easily stand up to the United States or refuse to fall in line with their benefactor or military ally?

James Abourezk, a former U.S. Senator, said he seriously doubts that any country receiving U.S. government aid could withstand the economic pressure to vote for a U.S. resolution at the Security Council.

''It would be a tragedy,'' he told IPS, ''if a war were to be declared based on such pressure''.

The negotiations for the payoffs, by the way, have been going on in earnest for at least two months. Recall this story from September's LA Times.