In coming days the double veto at the Security Council of sanctions on Zimbabwe will be cited as to just how dull the United Nations’ sharpest instrument has become. And with good reason. If it cannot act in the case of the regime in Harare, what purpose does it serve? A question so fundamental is eventually going to point people to Senator McCain’s proposal from the stump — that the U.N. be supplanted by a league of democracies, an idea that has bipartisan roots, in that it was pushed by Secretary of State Albright during the Clinton administration.

Not that the question doesn’t need to be put to Moscow, Beijing, and Pretoria. The Chinese communists and the Kremlin camarilla vetoed a resolution that would have imposed arms embargo on a country ruled by, in Robert Mugabe, an aging thug. It would have restricted travel and monetary transactions by him and 13 of his henchmen.

Russia’s position was specifically disappointing because a few days earlier President Medvedev, newly elected, signed on to a G-8 declaration that specifically called for the imposition of similar sanctions on Mr. Mugabe’s regime. Chinese and Russian diplomats argue that the Security Council is not the place to deal with Zimbabwe, because its “internal” issues pose no threat to international peace and security, which is the traditional threshold for any council action.

Moscow and Beijing use the same argument to block action aimed at helping people in places like Burma. This strategy assures that words like Tibet, Taiwan, or Chechnya are never even whispered in the hallways of Turtle Bay. But if so-called “internal” issues do not merit council action, South Africa has a short memory. Apartheid was the internal policy of South Africa until the Security Council came together on the side of good in the early 1970s. And so a real democracy began there.

South Africa’s history lesson has either been forgotten by President Mbeki or taught to him wrongly in the first place. Mr. Mbeki has conducted feeble “mediation” in the crisis that begun in Zimbabwe when his old pal, Mr. Mugabe, decided to steal a March 29 election that was won by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Instead of standing with Zimbabweans who wish to rid themselves of decades of an inept and evil president who has turned Africa’s bread basket into a basket case, Mr. Mbeki clung to anti-Colonial sentimentality and stood with his old comrade. The South African mediation has turned into a shameless attempt to assure that Mr. Mugabe can cling on to power.

Two democratic countries in Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone, stood with America and its European and Latin American allies and sponsored the resolution that was vetoed yesterday. The countries that did not – including Communist Vietnam and tyrannical Libya – were wooed by Pretoria, which has fought nail and tooth to prevent affording the people of Zimbabwe the same privileges that, with the help of the Security Council, are now enjoyed by South Africans.

As our own envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, pointed out yesterday in one of his finest hours since becoming America’s voice at Turtle Bay, South African trade unions, working against the wishes of Mr. Mbeki, have recently blocked arms shipments from China to Zimbabwe, assuring that the violence visited on the opposition by Mr. Mugabe’s thugs would not be abetted by their country.

Asked about Pretoria’s argument that sanctions would hamper Mr. Mbeki’s mediation, Mr. Khalilzad told reporters, “There isn’t anything serious going on in terms of the negotiations. The South African effort. President Mbeki’s effort so far has been a failure. And we are, and I am, encouraged personally by trends one sees in South Africa itself where other leaders – Mr. Zuma, Archbishop Tutu, unions and others — have spoken the conscience of this country on this issue.”

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When all this gets around to Mr. McCain’s proposal, which he has been advancing from the stump, for the creation a league of democracies to compete with an ineffective United Nations, suddenly everyone seems to get the jitters. His opponents argue that just because a country is governed democratically does not mean that it is always wise or benevolent – and it would certainly not assure agreement with America. Maybe not. But it would ensure them standing. And it could well assure some agreement, as countries started seeing an incentive to become democratic. In yesterday’s vote, party lines fell mostly along the democracy fault lines. And in South Africa’s case, democratically exerted pressure may soon get to Mr. Mbeki as well.