A news agency has conducted an interview with Eugene Dabbous, a political commentator, about the recent criticism by the US ambassador to the United Nations of the Security Council’s voting system.
What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.Interviewer:I’d like to get your reaction on what Samantha Power said criticizing the voting system of the Security Council and also about how the United States has misused that veto power so many times when its own benefits are at stake specifically when it comes to Israel.Dabbous:Well, this was not a surprise for anybody that this would be vetoed and you are correct in saying that the US uses this power reciprocally.
So, I think the US needs to reconsider, along with the other five permanent members, developing a new approach where other powers have veto power or they abolish[the] veto power for everyone.
Interviewer:And if you can elaborate on what Samantha Power said when she herself on behalf of the United States has also criticized the Council’s veto system?Dabbous: Well, what she meant was that the US and France and Britain, the three pro-intervention parties in the Security Council had hoped to get Security Council backing in order to make this legitimate under international law. The fact that they have not got that is very disappointing for her but I think they knew that. I think the real shock is that they lost the British because of the resistance in parliament, the thirty members of the Conservative Party who voted against it. Obviously, France will be going along. Turkey which is a NATO ally is definitely interested in going along as well; but this is a very narrow coalition of the willing, and she is, I think, she is just venting frustration. I do not think this is any specific shift in American policy toward the UN.