Wheel Column: Trouble UNderfoot

Last week highlighted why the United Nations is an organization in need of reform.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who has engaged in a rhetorical battle with the United States for more than a year, was given a stage to rant and rave about Israel, the United States and the U.N. Security Council.

But even Ahmadinejad was upstaged by the main attraction at the U.N. General Circus, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The charismatic leader, who portrays himself as the next Che Guevara, uses his country's stranglehold on oil revenues to meddle in the affairs of other South American countries, even when many of his own citizens live in severe poverty.

Chavez called President Bush "the devil" and said that the podium still smelled like sulfur from the last time Bush spoke. He went on to criticize the U.N., but still begged to be part of the Security Council.

The actions of Ahmadinejad and Chavez sparked outrage on both sides of the political aisle. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., no fan of President Bush, called Chavez a thug. Liberal New York Congressman Charlie Rangel also defended the president, saying, "You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district, and criticize my president."

The official American response to these insults was laudably diplomatic. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton called Chavez's rant nothing more than a "comic strip approach to international affairs."

Although it's amazing that we allow hostile foreign leaders like Ahmadinejad and Chavez to insult our nation from within it, this is also what makes our country so special. As Bolton said: "In the case of Ahmadinejad and Chavez, they could also go over to Central Park ... and exercise their free speech there. It's too bad they don't let their own people have free speech."

Ironically, Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Bush did all agree on one issue: The United Nations is an organization in shambles. Ahmadinejad and Chavez dislike the disproportionate power of the Security Council, and Bush dislikes that the United States pays 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget, yet has an equal vote with countries that pay almost nothing.

The U.N. needs to be fixed, and hopefully Ahmadinejad and Chavez's recent antic will provide an impetus for reform.

Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the non-partisan political organization CSAmerica and managing editor of the Emory Political Review.

This column ran in the Emory Wheel on 9/29/06.