During the last week much attention has been given to President Bush asking the UN for help in Iraq. Democrats, especially the loathsome nine, see the administration asking the UN for assistance as an admission that the Bush doctrine is a failure. They feel the United States should simply cater to the whims of the UN. In fact, they say Bush isn’t going far enough. They want Bush to do as France and Germany demand, and hand complete control over to the UN. Well, here is a newsflash: The UN is complete debacle, the French don’t have the World figured out, and the last thing we want is them running the show in Iraq.

On paper, a multi-national, UN led military force is a joke compared to the current coalition. First, they would need to rely on the United States for logistical support and intelligence. Secondly, you’d have a force comprised of soldiers who don’t speak the same language, and don’t even use the same bullets in their rifles. They have been trained in different ways, and some soldiers aren’t even equipped with underwear as claimed in a recent article by David Wood from the NewHouse News Service. You would have a chain-of-command comprised of military leaders whose diversity would be a hindrance, not an asset. Planning a military strategy is like any other strategy: having multiple points of view is good, but in war you want a cohesive, streamlined command chain that operates from the same playbook. How can anyone expect such a force to replace a group like the Army’s 4th Infantry division, which is the most technologically advanced conventional fighting group in the United States military, which as a whole is the best trained, best equipped military in the world. For some odd reason, Democrats, Kofi Annan, and the French think replacing the US military with the UN smorgasbord is a great idea.

The UN is great when all you need is a babysitter, or someone to drop off groceries, but when you have severely hostile situations where none of the warring factions want the UN involved, you have a real problem. Bush and Co. have got it right with their latest proposal to the UN, which basically assigns the blue-helmets to policing duties, humanitarian relief, and helping to finance the reconstruction effort. This will allow the US to refocus its efforts on major reconstruction issues, as well as the hunt for Saddam and WMD. If the UN decides to help, it will also provide the opportunity for many of the US soldiers stationed in Iraq now to come home because the answer to winning the peace is fewer soldiers, not more as Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers rightly believes, and stated during a recent visit to the Senate. All the troops in the world are not going to stop fanatical terrorists on suicide missions, and the situation isn’t nearly as bad as the likes of the New York Time s would have you believe. Sure, more troops would be great if we were engaged in major battles, but a couple terrorists taking cheap shots at convoys won’t be stopped by more convoys. Better intelligence, cooperation with the Iraqis, and putting more power in the hands of the Iraqi police is what will solve the lingering problems in Iraq. Unnecessarily bringing more troops into Iraq will send a message to the Iraqi people that the US is here to stay, and doesn’t intend on letting the Iraqi’s establish their own authority.

Politicians and pundits on the left claim that we are in this “quagmire” because we didn’t get the help of the French, Russians and Germans, and we must do whatever it takes to have their blessing, now that major combat is over. One must ask two questions, why isn’t the “axis-of-weasel” supporting the United States, and why must we care, as the likes of Howard Dean or retired General Wesley Clark claim?

The quick answer is the “axis” is just as selfish, and concerned with their own national interests as is the United States is, and no we shouldn’t care that they are angry, at least not for the reason the left cares. Of all the arguments against war, not having the current support of France, Germany and Russia is probably the worst. These three countries are by no means excellent examples of successful foreign policies. The left would have you believe that the Europeans are some sort of enlightened group of people, with a special grasp on diplomacy. Then why have they been at the center of almost every major global crisis of the last millennium? The French, and their current “allies” are reading from the same playbook that dragged much of civilization into a little skirmish called World War II.

France despises the United States, and their foreign policy is based on the belief that if they oppose the United States as often as possible, then they will be perceived as a world power. They don’t care about peace, they don’t care about what is right and wrong, they just want to feel important, and are jealous that the US is as dominant as it is. That is all well and good, because we, nor the rest of the world, need the French. However, it’s a problem because of the influence they have on the European Union. The French could go and do their own thing, and the United States would be none the worse, but they are painting this as a US vs. Europe and not a US vs. France problem, and this is straining our relationship with the allies, which we ultimately need to keep intact.

The Germans and Russians aren’t as demonic in their ways as the French. They are just more concerned with their own internal problems. Germany’s economy is in the toilet, and Russia is…well Russia. When has this country not been in complete turmoil? The French appear to be the real instigators of anti-US sentiments in the European Union.

The knee-jerk reaction fom liberals in the United States is to say that the US is destroying the Atlantic Relationship. But, the truth is, the French are at fault. They are interested in appeasement, and containment of terrorists, as well as doing the opposite of the US. These policies do nothing to keep the West safe from Islamic fundamentalists bent on killing us. For years Europe, and even the US, turned a blind eye to terrorism, and it has only made things worse. Appeasement and containment worked against the likes of the Soviet Union during the Cold War because the Soviets understood, and accepted the diplomatic process. While they were certainly evil, they didn’t want to see themselves destroyed at the hands of the United States nuclear arsenal, and they knew they could negotiate to make life easier for themselves. Terrorists don’t understand the art of diplomacy, nor do they care to. They don’t want to deal with the west, they want to see it liquidated, and that is something that cannot be talked about over tea and pastry. The French need to learn this, and they also need to learn that sometimes life isn’t easy, and you must do what is right.

This does not mean a narrow-minded “screw the world, we’ll do our own thing” attitude is the way to go. A completely preemptive, unilateral approach to foreign policy isn’t the solution, but we must accept the fact that sometimes the UN and France don’t know what it is best for the United States. It isn’t like they believed Iraq was harmless. They felt that he was a threat just as much as the US and Great Britain did. They just didn’t want to do anything about it. They didn’t have our interests in mind. We need to shake off the left’s belief that the United States is always wrong when it comes to foreign policy, and realize that the US needs to take care of it’s own security, before it takes care of the rest of the world’s.