Analysis: The limits of UN power in the new world order

The 2003 Iraq war confirms that legitimising the use of force through the UN will remain the exception rather than the rule

The serious fighting is ended, but Allied commanders are still finding it difficult to declare this war over. Unlike wars of the past, there has been nobody available to offer a dignified surrender, agree an orderly transfer of power or negotiate a ceasefire. Groups of desperate men, many of them not even Iraqi, may keep on fighting, or lay low and then regroup for a later terrorist campaign. This is what has happened in Afghanistan, where remnants of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida are still able to cause trouble.

By contrast, the 1991 Gulf War appeared to have a neater conclusion, with a negotiated ceasefire, the return of prisoners and gradual disengagement. By not addressing the problem of Saddam Hussein's regime, however, it created the conditions for the 2003 war. The reasons for not addressing the Saddam problem then lay in the assumption that his failed Kuwaiti adventure would be followed by the normal processes of political succession in Iraq, anxiety about triggering a disruptive civil war if the Allies tried to force the pace, and the potential cost and bother of trying to occupy and then run the country. In addition, the international license for the war did not extend beyond the liberation of Kuwait.

The judgement of 1991 was neither unreasonable nor controversial. Only in retrospect does it appear so flawed. At the time the conduct of this war was seen to offer a model for the new world order, setting standards for the use of force by the great powers. Such force must be sanctioned by the United Nations, mounted by an international coalition in pursuit of limited objectives from which it must not stray, and show great care for civilian life and property.

These are the standards against which the 2003 war has been evaluated, and so often found wanting. Yet it was the 1991 war that was the historical oddity, and its aftermath must at least lead to some questioning of whether the model was either realistic or appropriate.

Prior to this date, the only war approved by the UN was in 1950, and then by a fluke, because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council when the United States gained agreement to push back North Korea's invasion of the South. The UN conspicuously failed to condemn Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980, in a move of unanimous hypocrisy. This was compounded more than a decade later, in changed political circumstances, when the UN decided, retrospectively, that this was, after all, aggression.

The UN did manage to deplore Israel's 1981 destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osiraq, sold by France with scant regard for a non-proliferation treaty, which it was itself then refusing to sign. By and large, the veto-wielding powers on the Security Council protected themselves and their friends, and so with most armed conflicts little was condemned and even less was approved. Force could normally be justified, albeit only at a pinch, by reference to the "inherent right of self-defence" as enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. There was no need to turn to the Security Council.

It was a combination of the unambiguous character of Iraqi aggression against Kuwait and the unprecedented degree of harmony on the Security Council following the end of the Cold War that made possible the series of UN resolutions that culminated in resolution 678 of November 1990, allowing member states to use "all necessary means" to reverse the aggression. The mandate went no further. This was to be a truly limited war in both ends and means, which meant that in important respects it was to be inconclusive.

The same had been true of the Korean War. At one point, until the Chinese intervened, it looked as if the US might use the opportunity to engineer a regime change in the North. As it was, this became the prototype limited war, with the basic objectives achieved but no resolution of the underlying conflict, which grumbles on over half a century later.

The strategic response to Korea was to contain the danger, and so it was with Iraq, but the result produced more instability rather than less. Saddam used his survival to demonstrate that the 1991 war had not, despite appearances, been anything other than a victory. A permanent American garrison in Saudi Arabia provoked Islamic militancy; the maintenance of sanctions added to the misery of the Iraqi people and strengthened the regime's control of the economy.

Most calamitous of all was the coalition's refusal to support the March 1991 insurrection. In the south it led to a sense of betrayal which, as we have seen, is still deeply felt. In the north, the persecution of the Kurds did prompt a response, so that, despite themselves, Alliance members became involved in the internal affairs of Iraq. Saddam's refusal to co-operate with efforts to disarm him of his most dangerous weapons added to the continuing sense of instability. There has been no real peace since 1991, but continuing threats and occasional military action, with a substantial if short air campaign in December 1998 (Desert Fox) followed by continuing skirmishing between Allied air forces and Iraqi air defences.

In the end, the inspections issue triggered the second war, and the United States and Britain know they are expected to produce the significant stocks of chemical and biological weapons that were successfully hidden from inspectors. If they fail to do so, then explanations will be needed as to why the regime failed to provide convincing evidence of the destruction of these weapons and went to such extraordinary lengths to thwart and deceive the inspectors.

It would be awkward to discover that the war had been prompted by poor Iraqi book-keeping or a misguided attempt to assert sovereignty by resisting the pressure for intrusive inspections even when there was nothing left worth hiding. None the less, even if the famous "smoking gun" is found, the justification for this war now rests in the toppling of an outlaw regime that was hated by its own population.

The potential downsides of this war have been painted in lurid colours. We shall now have to see if the new Iraq really is going to be an awful mess within a Middle East in which outraged radical Islam competes with rampant American power for regional ascendancy. The optimists hope for a new Iraq that does not need to be contained or sanctioned and so allows – eventually – for dramatic reductions in the US and British military presence in the neighbourhood and opens up new possibilities with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is nothing inevitable either way. Much depends on decisions yet to be taken and on events that are currently beyond prediction.

In the process, international affairs will be restructured. The 1991 Gulf War concluded with a promise of a new world order that turned out to be illusory, and created expectations of the United Nations that it proved unable to meet. The task at hand was accomplished, but a wound was left that continued to fester. There is now at last a chance to heal the wound, and the United Nations can play its part, as it did after Kosovo, another war on which the Security Council could not agree.

But the 2003 war confirms that legitimising and guiding the use of force through the UN will remain the exception rather than the rule. This will be especially true if the conclusion drawn from this experience is that the aftermath of wars fought to a decisive conclusion tends to be more orderly than those fought only to the point permitted by a Security Council resolution.

The author is professor of War Studies at King's College, London