The United Nations will recast its priorities to make the security of Western nations a key goal in its mission, according to the London Telegraph:

The security of America and other wealthy countries will for the first time be declared a key priority for the United Nations under reforms designed to restore confidence in the crisis-ridden international body.

The reforms, to be announced tomorrow by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, will be seen as a concession to Washington after repeated clashes with President George W Bush over US foreign policy, including the war in Iraq.

The UN Secretariat promises a "real re-launch … a fundamental manifesto" after criticism of its performance since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

This move surprises me only because I wouldn't have given Kofi Annan enough credit for coming to this conclusion. Prior to 9/11, the UN managed to only make itself a nuisance to the US, or at least that's all we saw of it. It refused to take any action that changed the status quo, preferring to pass resolution after resolution demanding change that it would never enforce. That inaction and vacillation only emboldened the tyrannies while encouraging others to plunder its programs for their own enrichment.

The UN's incompetence and corruption remained hidden from Western eyes, at least until 9/11 came along and changed all of the calculations, especially in the US. Suddenly we found we could no longer afford the impotent debate society that the UN provided. We knew we faced more attacks if we allowed the UN to dictate its usual status quo as a reply. Unfortunately, the UN didn't recognize that the American security situation had changed -- and that we could no longer afford to play the status quo game.

In fact, it continued to act as a petulant child, refusing to cooperate with American insistence that the UN start enforcing its own resolutions, leading to the bypassing of Turtle Bay in removing Saddam Hussein and the discovery of massive corruption in the Oil-For-Food program. Had we followed the lead of Annan, Chirac, Putin, and Schroeder, that corruption would still be hidden and Saddam would continue to collect his billions.

Now that George Bush has won his re-election bid, though, the UN understands that America has lost its affection for the emasculated debating society the UN has become. Western nations have reacted with horror to the sexual abuses that UN peacekeeping missions have inflicted on the victims of genocide. They will refuse to further fund the unmitigated disaster that the UN has become until Turtle Bay starts reflecting their priorities -- which means a focus on terrorism and security, especially since their money and troops have proven the only reliable resources for the UN.

John Bolton's appointment underscores this new seriousness. Bush intended on sending a message to Annan: you have one last chance to make the UN relevant to Western needs. We will no longer underwrite the anti-Americanism and the kowtowing to the petty tyrannies that comprise Annan's mandate. Either Annan needs to get on the side of the democracies and start working on making the Western nations more secure, allowing them to help spread freedom, or the UN can consider itself a permanent footnote to history.

Not surprisingly, some of the anti-American hysterics in the global community decry this strategic shift. Too bad. If they want American resources and American cash to flow into Turtle Bay, then the UN needs to quit making itself as hostile as possible to American interests. After discovering their treachery with Saddam, they're lucky we don't toss them aside altogether.

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