  SEIZE THIS! To anyone who has had the displeasure of actually reading a United Nations resolution, this Eliot Cohen piece on urlLink OpinionJournal should make you either chuckle or sigh at what the UN has become (if it were ever anything else): As a matter of civic education, everyone should have to read a U.N. Security Council resolution. Take number 1511 on Iraq, and begin with the obligatory last sentence "DECIDES to remain seized of the matter. " The line is both arresting and baffling, and conjures an image of scores of goggle-eyed diplomats caught in a cataleptic fit as a result of wrestling with a knotty foreign policy problem. And it means nothing. Could one imagine the council declaring that it "DECIDES this is the last time it will debate this tiresome issue"? Very few problems in international relations disappear, and neither, presumably, will the council and its deliberations. Vapidity has its fascinations. The resolution EXPRESSES condolences to Iraqis on terrorist attacks (sympathy rarely extended to Israelis, but that's another matter), TAKES NOTE of upcoming meetings of the Governing Council in Iraq, APPEALS for strengthened efforts to be benevolent, and EMPHASIZES, REMINDS, REQUESTS and AFFIRMS all manner of good things.
However, it spends not one euro, equips no soldier and dispatches no relief worker. Cohen then examines the various states' rationales (if any) for supporting the resolution and ends on this note: In domestic politics our leaders understand the need to cloak harsh realities with formulas that all can live with. It's far more important to do so in international politics, and wiser by far for a government to show a courteous desire for the support of others than to revel in the dubious pleasures of sauntering alone in dark places.
That said, let no one mistake words for material aid, unanimity for anything other than cold-blooded calculation, and "authority" for moral sanction. The burdens will remain ours, and the merit of the war will depend on how we win the peace, not on the woolly phrases of diplomats. [emphasis added] Yup. 
