Madam, - The campaign to discredit the United Nations, so ably taken up by your columnists Kevin Myers and Mark Steyn, should be seen in its proper context.
It is merely the latest of the regular press campaigns brought to us by the people responsible for the war on terror, while we wait patiently for evidence of Mesopotamian weapons of mass destruction. We haven't gone away, you know.
I find it particularly rich of President Bush's media supporters to accuse the UN of incompetence. Despite the most awesome firepower and the wealth of the world's most powerful economy the Americans and their allies have somehow managed to make a horse's posterior of Iraq. "Full spectrum dominance" was such a captivating term. Total and utter ineptitude has been the reality.
The war was based on a folly. Once the Iraqis tasted "freedom" the rest of the Middle East was supposed to follow. But the Middle East seems to be as it was in 2002, with the Saudi and Egyptian regimes continuing business as usual.
Even though the war was based on falsehoods, the coalition members could have made some amends in their running of post-war Iraq. Sadly, it appears that they had no coherent strategy.
It is in this light that the latest spin should be viewed. The grand plan, the once-in-a-century project to reshape the Middle East, has been deferred indefinitely. The attack on the UN represents a particularly shabby turn for a project which once had such grandiose goals.
The best the warmongers can do is to have Rumsfeld issue a few "there theres", while Tony Blair encourages us to "move on" and Bush waffles on about "democracy". That is just not good enough.
Targeting the UN now is a sad reflection of the mess into which we have been led by the unthinking arrogance of the Bush administration. - Is mise,
CATHAL RABBITTE, Adliswil, Switzerland.