Robert Fantina made the remarks in an exclusive interview with IRNA.
The full text of the interview, published on Monday, is as follows:
From your point of view, how essential is maintaining the neutrality of the United Nations for the credibility and effectiveness of this institution? Some critics argue that lobbying by major powers, especially the United States and its allies, has undermined this neutrality. How would you assess this situation?
Without absolute neutrality, the United Nations is basically worthless. This lack of neutrality has been the central flaw of the UN since its inception. By granting veto power in the Security Council to the five permanent members (the United States, France, Russia, China, and Britain), the United Nations immediately put itself under the power of those nations, and they have used that power over the UN repeatedly. The US is especially guilty of this, using the Security Council as a vehicle to advance its own geopolitical interests around the world, often to the detriment of international law and human rights.
In addition to the abuse of the veto power, some nations, and again, especially the United States, withhold funding from UN organizations that, for whatever reason, they find fault with. This is another issue that prevents the UN from true neutrality. It must make concessions to the powerful nations that fund it, in order to keep some of its programs viable.
The General Assembly, a far more democratic organization, is powerless to implement its resolutions. The Security Council can implement its own resolutions, but only if they are not vetoed by one of the five permanent members. A complete overhaul of the structure of the UN is necessary. This, however, will never be agreed to by the United States, which wants to continue its centuries-long practice of terrorism, violation of international law, and disregard for human rights, so its wealthy and powerful leaders can maintain their positions of wealth and power.
Given the current global situation and the use by some major powers of coercive diplomacy, maximum pressure, and military power—including actions against Iran and various conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine and Sudan—has the time not come to reform the structure of the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, to prevent wars or better manage crises? Considering that the veto power is held exclusively by the five permanent members of the Security Council, is any meaningful reform in this regard realistically possible?
The United Nations has proven itself to be a useless organization, unable to do anything to prevent wars, or bring them to an end when they occur. The fact that it has been unable to stop a genocide that has been widely publicized for over two years is stark evidence of its uselessness.
The Security Council is one of the most undemocratic organizations on the international stage. With five permanent members and ten others elected for two-year terms, and with the five having veto power, the Security Council can hardly be seen to be representative of the 193 nations that are UN members. The decisions of the Security Council are often at odds with votes in the General Assembly, which has no real power or authority.
So the United Nations must be overhauled for it to be in any way effective. Even removing the veto power of the five members of the Security Council would be a great help. But due exactly to that veto power, the necessary improvements to the UN will never take place.
What must happen is for another organization to be created to replace the UN and be an effective force for peace in the world. The United Nations, as currently structured, can never be that and, also due to its current structure, it will never change.
Some observers believe that recent actions by the European Troika and the United States at the United Nations against Iran—such as efforts to prevent the termination of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 regarding the implementation of the JCPOA—are driven more by political pressure and lobbying than by principles of international law. What do you think is the objective of the US and the three European countries in this regard? Could the continuation of this trend weaken global peace and security?
Throughout its history, the United States has always had an ‘enemy’, some nation or ideology (usually associated with one or more nations), used by the government to keep the US citizenry fearful, and to justify its bloated military budget. So-called defense contractors are very generous to members of Congress when those members are seeking re-election, or candidates are seeking their first election, and those members and candidates are not going to do anything to alienate potential donors.
Currently, and for some years past, the US has designated Iran as its major ‘enemy’. Convincing the population that it should fear Iran has not been difficult. Iran is a mainly-Muslim nation, and the US very effectively made its citizens fearful of Islam after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
After all, people in Middle Eastern countries wear different kinds of clothing than is common in the mainly-white US; their churches are designed differently, with most churches in the US having steeples, but those in the Middle East are built with minarets, and their language is inscrutable to most US citizens. The US government convinced the populace that what is different or not understood must be dangerous.
So as the US tries to destroy the Iranian economy, and even bombed that nation in June of this year, it attempts, with some success, to convince its allies to join it.
The goal of this is twofold: 1. to weaken Iran so that the racist, apartheid regime of Israel is the only powerful country in the Middle East, and 2. to install a puppet government in Iran that will do Washington, DC’s bidding.
The US did this before. In 1953, the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed the brutal Shah of Iran as monarch. For the next twenty-six years, fully supported by the US, he oppressed the people of Iran until he was overthrown in 1979. That revolution established the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the US has opposed since its inception.
The US simply wants another docile, cowed government in the Middle East, one that will do exactly what the US government requires. Governmental leaders in the US are not concerned with human rights and self-determination. They want blind obedience to their demands.
The leaders of the other nations that are following the US down this dangerous path must recognize their own peril. If they pass legislation that displeases any US president, they, too, could become the US’s next military target.
As they fearfully adhere to US demands, they may be guilty of serious human-rights violations, which will cause problems for them within their own nations, and could bring them to the attention of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It seems that many of these leaders are willing to sacrifice long-term security for short-term appeasement of the US. They will find, in the long run, that it simply wasn’t worth it.
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