E-Mail Exchanges with Sir Brian Urquhart (2000): The UN Record

E-Mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart (2000): Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

E-Mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart, former Undersecretary General of the UN, with students at Marin Academy High School, 5/31/00

What UN action are you most ashamed of?

Taj

Over the years there have been many failures to act which the UN should be ashamed of. For example, the complete failure to do anything about Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980. Although this was a clear case of aggression, which is precisely what the UN was set up to deal with, for their own political reasons, the five permanent members of the Security Council refused to react in any significant way. This certainly gave Saddam Hussein the impression that the Security Council was a paper tiger, and very probably encouraged him to invade Kuwait ten years later.

Most proud of?

Taj

Subjectively speaking, I suppose I am most proud of early UN peacekeeping operations starting with the Suez Crisis in 1956. This was a complete innovation, and during the years of the Cold War, [UN peacekeeping] served to control many regional conflicts and to prevent them from triggering major hostilities between East and West.