Does the Middle East war toll the death knell of the UN?

The ongoing war in the Middle East has left untold misery on the people of Iran and has shaken the global economy threatening even a recession. So far-reaching is the repercussion that the recovery could take years, if not decades. Material devastation and human suffering continue to mount, highlighting the fragile state of regional stability.

Apart from the ruin of infrastructure and the loss of human lives, the most striking damage of this war is the weakness of the United Nations, the global entity that stands for international peace and stability. An organisation that was formed soon after the Second World War, to maintain peace among the countries, has once again proved ineffectual. The relevance of this organisation, which has 193 member countries, is in question.

The United States and its closest ally, Israel started a military campaign against Iran under the pretext of an imminent threat, without the approval of the UN and continue the operation diregarding internartional law and order. The UN, which is comitted to keeping peace among the countries, is in a position where both hands are tied and stand idle as a mute victim or a spectator, be it in Ukraine war, the Gaza or in Iran. It has been powerless for the last three decades and is nothing short of a bureaucratic machinery.

This is not to belittle the entire organisation. True, it does perform well as a humanitarian organisation, but proved inactive in the geopolitical sphere. The big powers have literally clipped the wings of the UN. Almost 18,000 children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli bombings since October 7, 2025, and the world body failed to stop the aggression. The problem is that the UN is powerless to act independently and impartially. One can understand the helplessness of this global body that even its Secretary General is, very often, if not always a choice of the United States. So much for how it works.

The reasons are many. Primarily, the UN is not a body armed with a law enforcement machinery to run its diktats. All it has is some peacekeeping forces deployed in certain restive countries. And that too is not a formidable force. Second, needless to say is the veto power of five countries. The United States vetoed six UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza since October 2023. All 14 other members of the Security Council voted in favour of the ceasefire except the US. Indeed, it is a moral blow to the US, but the right-wing Republican government led by an outspoken and narcissistic President hardly cares what the world thinks. The present US dispensation moves on its own morality and its own whims, not in compliance to international law.

The recent events—such as the US blocking Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from speaking at the UN General Assembly in September last year by revoking his visa, and the formation of a White House-backed Board of Peace, effectively sidelining the UN, reinforce the apprehension of the rest of the world that the UN is in deep decline. It has lost its trust and reliability.

On the second day of the Iran war, on the first of March, the combined force assassinated the supreme leader of the country. What does it mean? None is safe from or immune to the evil bow by the US, not even the heads of the nations. The world is already in a trajectory towards a unipolar power equation. The United States tries to impose its hegemony over the world unquestioned and unhindered. There is no force that can check the expansionist invasions of that country. And the world is paying the price for it. As the Irish poet, W. B Yeats laments “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy loosed upon the world”.

A glance at what the President of the United States says about countries of the world will tell enough. He claims the US has the right to take over Canada, Cuba, and Greenland. This is not a joke. He even threatened to send the US forces to Greenland, an island under the rule of Denmark. His latest threat is to annex Cuba. Venezuela has almost knelt before it. Its president has been captured and brought to the US in an hours-long operation.

The Second Coming is certainly at hand, once again to recall Yeats. It is high time to reinvent the United Nations. In the first place, its Headquarters should be shifted from the US to Africa or Asia. Why does the UN itself need to be relocated and repurposed? For now, the world has no other body, at least to raise its voice against aggression and imposed war. After all, the condemnation of the UN has some moral value, for those who care.