Free Making War to Keep Peace by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick

States—passed a resolution condemning Iraq’s repression of its civilian population as “a threat to international peace and security” and, thus, that it was the proper concern of the Security Council. Resolution 688 affirmed these two principles by a 10 to 3 vote (Cuba, Yemen, and Zimbabwe voted no, and China and India abstained). The two principles are consistent with the UN Charter, but both were major departures from conventional UN doctrine. 89
    In the past, the most brutal repression by a government of its own population was treated as an internal matter that was beyond the jurisdiction of the Security Council—even if it created a million refugees and put destabilizing pressure on neighboring states. Until the adoption of Resolution 688, Article 2(4)’s noninterference principle was accorded a position of paramount importance in most UN discussions of international law. 90
    Adherence to the principle of noninterference had prevented action to stop even the most terrible human rights violations. When Idi Aminkilled tens of thousands of Ugandans in the 1970s, and Pol Pot starved, beat, and worked to death approximately two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979, the Security Council took no action. When Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam created a massive famine with his forced “villagefication” policy, the Security Council took no action. These humanitarian catastrophes were regarded as internal matters, as were China’s Great Leap Forward of 1958 and the decade-long Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, each of which slaughtered untold millions. Only South Africa (which because of its racist government structure was considered an illegitimate state) was regularly scrutinized and condemned by the UN Security Council for its treatment of its own population.
    Resolution 688 could only be passed because the cold war had ended, the Soviet bloc had collapsed, and the major governments were changing their views about the proper business of the Security Council. China, which could have blocked the passage of the resolution (as it could have blocked the passage of the Gulf War resolutions), did not, probably because of its powerful distaste for standing alone. 91
    In early April 1991, the Security Council considered a second measure to save the Kurdish refugee population. British prime minister John Major argued for the creation of secure enclaves inside Iraq, protected by the United Nations, that would be large enough to include population centers. The European Community supported Major’s position, but the United States, the Soviet Union, and China expressed reservations about the violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity. UN support for the safe haven concept would reappear in the Bosnian conflict, again giving respect for human rights priority over respect for territorial integrity. 92
    These proposals were a clear indication that the new world order would have substantially higher standards of conduct than the old and would give a greater priority to the rights of people compared with the rights of whatever government is in power.
    George H. W. Bush’s Vision
    These emerging views were congruent with George H. W. Bush’s vision. He was convinced that Americans had a special mission and he frequently spoke of it.
    He shared with Wilson, FDR, and Truman the twentieth-century American dream of a world of law and peace preserved through collective action—a world order based on “peaceful settlement of disputes, solidarity against aggression, reduced and controlled arsenals, and just treatment of all peoples.” 93 Bush described his dream in a speech to the UN General Assembly on September 21, 1992. His adult life, he said, had been marked by successive conflicts between tyranny and freedom, and deep divisions between totalitarianism and democracy. Now, with the end of the cold war, he dreamed of transcending these divisions:
    I believe we have a unique