United Nations Meetings Demonstrate How Fragmented the World Is in Dealing With the Many Problems of Today

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Last Updated on: 25th September 2017, 03:26 pm

The 2017 edition of the United Nations General Assembly week has come and gone in New York City. Unfortunately for the world, the august body was unable to solve any of the pressing issues hanging over the globe from a variety of quarters. United States' President Trump managed to threaten both North Korea and Iran soundly. They threatened him back unbowed.

The President's administration also unveiled a new raft of sanctions which will punish the friends of North Korea. Undeterred, Russia and China who stand to lose all access to U.S. banks and markets over their shady alliance with Pyongyang, proceeded to criticize the U.S. and its still-new president.

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While the U.S. President demonstrated iron resolve in his speech about the two renegade nations, stating that the United States was well-prepared to “completely destroy North Korea” if it continues to threaten the Americans and their allies, this also did not achieve anything more meaningful than colorful sound bites on the evening news.

In fact, both the North Koreans and the Iranians took an almost sadistic pleasure in hitting back at the U.S. in their following speeches, conveniently scheduled for after the U.S. had gone. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Young Ho, who had his 15 minutes of fame on Saturday, earlier bluntly stated:

“Perhaps we might consider a historic above-ground test of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.”

Meanwhile, other security council members Russia and China were blatantly warning the United States against acting too aggressive towards North Korea or going it alone with a military option that President Trump has continuously promised remains on the table.

Trump's Administration Considers Its Options on the Despised Iran Deal

It is no secret that President Trump continues to despise the nuclear deal his predecessor President Obama made with Iran. All this week, the administration continued to consider and debate its practical options for handling this “worst deal ever” that America had made with the untrustworthy Iranians.

While the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other administration officials were privately urging the president to go ahead and certify that Iran had complied with the landmark accord, some senators such as Senator Tom Cotton urged the president to decertify Iran's compliance and then work on fixing the broken deal.

The Iranians refused to take this stinging criticism sitting down. Their President Rouhani came out swinging back in his speech claiming that if the U.S. scraps this deal with them, then the Americans will suffer the consequences and be terribly sorry. When asked specifically what Iran would do by way of retaliation, the Iranian president said no one would trust the word of the United States anymore in the future.

As if the two main antagonists North Korea and Iran were not bad enough, Russia and China both had to muddy the waters by criticizing the U.S.-led efforts to stop their threats against world peace and order. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came down on the United States strongly for its “Warlike hysteria” on North Korea in his Thursday United Nations' speech. His not so subtle rebuke against President Trump did not go unnoticed.

Foreign minister Lavrov was gracious enough to condemn the North's insidious nuclear weapon development along with the various flagrant violations of the previous United Nations' resolutions. Yet he quickly drew the line there and warned the world of this perilous confrontation spiraling out of control which the two opposing sides had set in motion with:

“The escalation of wartime hysteria is not only a dead end but a ruinous path.”

Instead, the leading Russian diplomat encouraged the world body to pursue a Chinese and Russian-joint venture proposal which they presented back in early July. This would have the North freezing its missile and nuclear programs in a trade off for the United States and South Korea freezing their annual military exercises.

The U.S. had already rejected such a proposal out of hand. The difference of course is that neither South Korea nor the U.S. has continuously flaunted both United Nations resolutions as well as the world body's international law through illegal nuclear and missile launch tests. Besides this, American officials have stated repeatedly that they will not reward North Korea by stopping military exercises and thus risking the close partnership with the South Koreans and other regional allies.

Meanwhile, the Chinese were not to be outdone by the Russians. Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China Thursday took the opportunity to counter the United States and its fiery president on a number of critical global issues in his speech before the General Assembly.

He tackled subjects as varied as the North Korean crisis to climate change and global diplomacy in his widely ranging speech. Mr. Wang was quick to point out his belief that the trend of globalization was unstoppable by anyone. He attempted to depict the Chinese as a stalwart champion of multiculturalism.