(under the protection of)

Which, as we can plainly see, they are not.

failing to secure a veto power

They didn’t need a veto, they secured a vote. By complying. To the sanctions. Because they worked. If anything, had the sanctions still been in place when Trump first won, I would expect a US veto on lifting them.

Today, since they are - as I said - a key enabler for Russia’s war ambitions, they would be protected. […] And that is still correct.

No it is not.

You’re equivocating real, actual vetos on real, actual resolution proposals with vetos you imagine would be invoked to resolutions you imagine would be proposed. You keep making arguments that don’t exist outside your head. And possibly Congress.

For example prosecution for killing its own citizens en masse a couple of weeks ago for daring to stand up against the ongoing oppression by the regime.

Oh? So not the war? You’re arguing for illegal war because veto umbrellas make the UN useless, but even in your imagination the veto is used against sanctions, instead of a war?

Who said otherwise?

Uh… something something western world, something holy crusade, blabla Amalek, blablabla red heifer, blablabla Jesus coming back. It’s been all over the news recently, but various rephrasings and dogwhistles were around for decades. Hell, now that I think about it, Iran’s theocracy being sclerotic and unpopular might even be a point in Iran’s favour.

being so hellbent on annihilating another country, that makes that regime a strain on the international community.

See, this is another one of those equivocations: This entire phrase applies a lot more directly to Israel than it does to Iran. Iran makes a lot of noise, but I don’t remember them assassinating Israeli officials or bombing Israel out of the blue, and when the international community gets serious, they are willing to make concessions. Israel, on the other hand, is under cover of more than two dozen SC vetos, and currently arguably engaged in an ethnic cleansing, a genocide, and an illegal war of aggression two, actually, they just invaded Lebanon. Again.

How good does that work if there’s an elite caste that can veto whatever goes against their will? How can you get countries to abide by the rules if these rules only apply to certain countries?

That is an excellent question, except it would seem to basically only apply to US and Israel. Maaaybe the NorKs. Past Apartheit, Russia was by and large covering it’s own ass, and China was mostly backing Russia up, presumably to fuck with the yanks. America is the only one with a problem child that needs constant bailing out of juvie. So, really, the question is less about the UN, and more “how do we get the US to either reign in their brat, or stop covering for it”.

punish the trespassing

Yes, that’s what the sanctions are for. And I once again point out you literally brought up a case in which they demonstrably worked.

A constellation we - luckily - haven’t seen since WW2

Yes. Thanks in no small part to the UN.

calling Iran’s foreign policy, “on the whole, more than reasonable” is quite a hot take.

I know, it’s crazy, and yet entirely correct. They took on the chin decades of open warmongering and multiple naked acts of war, retaliations that they did take were very carefully measured and precisely executed, going so far to telegraph their strikes a full day in advance so they would cause no casualties, and they even agreed to compromise on an armament program they (as we now see, rightfully) considered vital to the security if not outright survival of the country. It was like Ukraine agreeing to the Budapest agreement again. When their competition is a state that throws a hissyfit when asked nicely to stop killing children, I’d say they have been more than reasonable, even without considering we’re talking about an Islamic theocracy.

Iran was so isolated that neither Russia nor China saw any gain in protecting them.

So, then, you agree that “under the explicit protection of one of the big veto powers, be it Iran and Russia or Israel and the US” was a false equivalence?

Today, I think we both agree, Russia would veto.

Veto what? A naked war of aggression US and Israel can’t even articulate why they’re starting? I’d hope there would be no need to have to resort to a veto.

But also: Israel has the right to exist as a country within its international borders.

So does Iran. And the UN’s job is to try and enable both, no matter how much they’d like to run eachother over with a Zamboni machine. That’s the whole point.

When it comes to decision making, to actually enforcing the rules and values these countries once said to obey, the UN is paralysed.

Only if by “enforcement” you mean “going to war”, which, once again, is what the system is designed to prevent. Military intervention is difficult to authorize by design, precisely because it is, and should, be the last resort. Thinking of anything short of war as “paralyzed” is the exact “Stop-war association is worthless because it won’t let me go to war” anglo brainworms that are to blame for the 21st century being what it is.

to ensure for the global elite of nuclear powers that they’d never have to face a decision against their will.

Yes. Exactly. That’s how they prevent WW3. By making sure everyone else knows what the red lines of nuclear powers are. Otherwise, every time a nuclear power would want to take an action, it would be playing a game of chicken with all the other powers.

Because that theocratic regime determined to obliterate a whole nation

Who, Israel? Because from where I’m sitting, Iran’s foreign policy has been, on the whole, more than reasonable. Last I heard, they even agreed to completely stop uranium enrichment alltogether - and then the theocratic regime determined to destroy their whole nation murdered their head of state.

If what you’re saying is true, every single resolution on Iran’s nuclear program would have been vetoed by Russia, and none were. None. Zero. Instead, the nuclear rogue state under the veto shield by a global power is the exact country you’re defending.

Yes, it very much is anything else. The primary function of the UN is to provide a venue of discussion and arbitrage in order to help prevent war. The SC veto everyone harps on is there to help prevent world war. And if I may say so, it has been pretty successful, particularly at that last one. If the UN was just might-make-right, then there would be no reason to sidestep it the way we see it done. In fact, if anything, the false equivalence of Iran and Israel is actually an excellent example:

Iran was subject to a number of SC resolutions, in particular regarding their nuclear program, up to and including supervisions, sanctions, arms embargoes and asset freezes. As a result, Iran eventually accepted a nuclear monitoring and the sanctions were lifted, thus the conflict being solved through diplomacy, without resorting to war, and without fighting any kind of explicit protection from Russia. Point for the UN.

On the other hand, looking at the US golden child, they’re practically the only reason the US even uses it’s veto since Apartheit ended (huh. strange, that). But even with Israel being the rogue nation that it is, and being defended by the 900lb gorilla as it is, it’s capacity for damage was largely constrained, not even by veto, but by the simple fact that everybody votes against them, and all of their neighbors hate them. Until, of course, the cold war ended, Fukuyama wrote the worst article of all time, and the anglos decided negotiation is for pussies who don’t have the guns to make shit happen. Now, if Russia or China actually decide to protect Iran, we’re staring down the barrel of WW3, just like we were when Russia invaded Ukraine. You may think this is the UN’s fault for not stopping this, but this is, in fact, how things worked before the UN. The UN is the alternative to precisely what we’re looking at in the news right now.

But if you both accept that a veto blocks an intervention if backed by firepower, but doesn’t if not, then the vote itself is just window dressing and all you’re left is might makes right.

S/RES/1199 doesn’t authorize any kind of enforcement. It makes demands of a ceasefire, endorses observers, and threatens to “consider further action”, but doesn’t actually give any mandate for anything.

Your mistake is disagreeing with a comment that said “NATO good”. The nature of the disagreement is irrelevant. It’s the centrist form of the tankie purity test.

That was four years before 1999.

So, when Israel…

No, it was not.

NATO definition of peace.

Don’t be moving the goal posts now.

lol.

What UN mandate? They explicitly didn’t have one, because China and Russia would block it.

win11 is a shitshow coming from win10

Calling it: win12 will have a thin client cloud hosted SaaS edition, for those who can’t afford new ai-priced hardware.