Lileks answers that eternal question: how can we do anything without the United Nations.

"OK, fine, but how can we possibly go to war without the approval of the United Nations?"

You mean the French and the Germans, perhaps. Well, France is demonstrating its habitual reaction to glowering men with small mustaches; German leaders are pandering to their dovish cliques for short-term political gain. Politicians in both countries probably get hummingbird heart rates when they contemplate U.S. officials poring through the records in Baghdad and finding the extent to which our allies have been meeting Saddam at the back door.

In any case, who cares what France thinks? It's not as if France would be of any use in a war. France has one notoriously unreliable aircraft carrier, and its best troops are engaged in a unilateral operation in Ivory Coast.

"Granted. But how can we possibly go to war without the approval of the United Nations?"

Perhaps you mean that we need the moral imprimatur of this august and esteemed body. You'd have a better point if the United Nations was moral, august or esteemed. On the contrary: The United Nations is a dim hive of self-interested parties engaged in endless parliamentary mummery, united by a consensual delusion that all nations are equal.

So you have the bitterly risible sight of Libya chairing the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which is akin to giving Kid Rock control over the New York Philharmonic. You have the 2003 disarmament conference rotating its presidency among a group of states that includes Iran and Iraq. (Perhaps next year the agricultural planning conference will be held in Pyongyang.) You have the shameful performance of the peacekeepers in Srebrenica, looking away while thousands were slaughtered. You have the sex-for-food scandal at U.N. refugee camps in Africa -- if it happened at an American frat house, it would be national news for a week.

Let us not forget how France got on the Security Council. It was for all their crucial aid in winning World War II. Ditto China. We never could have defeated Germany and Japan without their help. Just kidding. But, as a reward for our liberating their countries, we allowed them to pretend that they were of equal importance to the postwar world. Without that bit of generosity, who would care a flip what France thought today? (link via Instapundit)