U.N. Security Council Must Share Burden of Responsibility for Iraq War: Their Resolutions Lead to War As Much as Faulty U.S. Intel Did

Some on the United Nations Security Council are pretty smug these days, telling the media and the U.S. "see, we told you so" as it relates to Iraq.

If memory serves, it was not the U.S. government who ordered Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors in to inspect Iraq's nuclear programs in the form of seventeen resolutions, it was the U.N. Security Council and the Secretary General who did.

It was those resolutions that declared that Iraq would suffer the consequences if it didn't allow the inspections to occur. "Unfettered access" were the popular buzzwords being thrown around the Security Council.

Further, members of the U.N. said during the lead-up to war that under the U.N. charter, only the U.N. could authorize war between two member nations; otherwise any war would be considered illegal. This lead President Bush to declare that he wouldn't wait for a permission slip from the U.N. to defend America.

So, before the Security Council gets too carried away again and starts passing resolutions on Iran's nuclear program, the Council needs to recognize that their resolutions on Iraq did great harm and helped to lead to the current state of affairs between the U.N., the U.S. and it's coalition partners, and Iraq. With Iran on the Security Council's agenda, they need to be reminded that their resolutions helped pave the way for war, and that they should proceed with great care.

Those members of the Security Council who are smug about what's happening in Iraq should also be ashamed of themselves. If they vote for such language in a resolution, then they should be prepared to contribute troops to the mess that follows.