Is the U.N. up to the challenge?

Re “Testing the limits of the United Nations,” Opinion, Aug. 14

With all its faults, the United Nations is still the last, best hope for a world at peace. Lebanon can be viewed as yet another place for the U.N. to fail or as a place for that “Parliament of man” to begin to succeed. The lesson of the feckless U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon should make clear the necessity to give the needed power and size to the new peacekeeping force.

It is time to still the critics and make the most of the strengths expressed in the U.N. Charter. Putting the needed backbone in a sustained effort for a peaceful Lebanon by the U.N. should be the unqualified goal of the United States. We signed on and made that promise when the U.N. was created, and it is time to keep our word.

DONALD BROWN

Beverly Hills

*

If this cease-fire sticks, the U.N. will be at least partly vindicated against its naysayers. After all, part of its purpose is to resolve conflict in the international community. Now the U.N. needs to ride this momentum: Go and duplicate this success in the other 18 peacekeeping operations.

WENDY HENDERSON

Chatsworth

*

Niall Ferguson asks: “Who seriously expects the United Nations to prevent Al Qaeda (or its latest imitator) from trying to blow up passenger planes in the air?” He should know that nobody expects the U.N. to do that alone.

Boring as it may sound, its member states need to work together by sharing intelligence and the kind of careful police work that enabled Britain and Pakistan to stop an alleged plot. The U.N. offers a virtually universal forum where decisions carry the stamp of multilateral legitimacy. Regarding Al Qaeda, the Security Council imposed sanctions as long ago as 1999, requiring all member states to cooperate in cracking down on it.

Immediately after 9/11, the Security Council required all member states to provide detailed information about their antiterrorist laws and policies and offered to help build up their police work. The Security Council created another counterterrorism body in 2004 to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And just last week, the Security Council recommended increased cooperation between the U.N. and Interpol. As early as next month, member states could adopt a global counterterrorism strategy that would provide set goals for the worldwide struggle against terrorism.

That is what the U.N. is all about: enabling the global community to agree on global strategies for dealing with global problems.

EDWARD MORTIMER

Executive Office of the

United Nations Secretary-General

New York