UN Will Need More Than Corona Crisis To Ignite Peacemaking

Secretary General Antonio Guterres of the United Nations is appealing countries of the world to unite under a global ceasefire to beat the coronavirus. It would be nice, wouldn’t it?“Today I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world,” Mr. Guterres said in late March. “It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.” In a virtual press conference Friday he told me his initiative may be “a first step to permanent peace.”One progressive non-governmental organization, AVAAZ, promptly launched a petition supporting the global ceasefire initiative. As of Friday it was signed by more than 1 million persons.Mr. Guterres’ plea is not as unserious as a beauty contestant’s wish for world peace. The pandemic indeed is universal and requires much cooperation among countries that normally are at odds with each other.Sure enough, in some lesser-known disputes — a rebellion in the Philippines, an intersectarian war in Cameroon — players pledged to heed the UN’s call. Even the Taliban announced it would stop fighting in those areas of Afghanistan where COVID19 ravages.These pledges, though, are yet to be verified. So what the plan does more than anything else is underscore the prospect of how far the world’s top warriors are far from a Lennon-Ono “Imagine” moment.On Saturday North Korea launched two suspected ballistic missiles. Communist China has menaced the Free Chinese by flying fighter jets over Taiwan. Fighting around Tripoli, Libya, is intensifying. On Saturday the Yemeni Houthis launched missiles at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Last week, rockets from Gaza hit Israel’s south.Since mid-March, when an Army specialist, Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias, and an Air Force sergeant, Marshal D. Roberts, were killed in an Iranian-backed militia attack on Camp Taji in Iraq, tensions between Washington and Tehran have been rising.This led President Trump to tweet Wednesday, “Upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq. If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed!”Iran is one of the pandemic’s worst hotspots, but as Mr. Trump’s tweet indicates, American security analysts are concerned that the mullahs aren’t about to replace its war on America with a war on viruses.As Iranians anguish over the regime’s incompetence, the Revolutionary Guards may well divert attention by letting loose the entire proxy infrastructure built by the late Qassem Soleimani so as to wreak havoc on the Mideast and beyond.Despite such threats, the United Nations Security Council has yet to back Mr. Guterres with a resolution calling for global ceasefire. Council diplomats tell me some members seek carve-outs and caveats.Russia, for one, wants to exempt the fight against terrorists from the proposed resolution. The Kremlin defines military support for Syria’s president, Bashar al Assad, as a war on terrorism. So its proposed loophole would assure the world’s deadliest hot war will go on even as corona goes viral.China too is intensifying its goals, vying to take advantage of the pandemic by extending its global influence. Beijing has increased naval maneuvers in the South China Sea, hoping America, the traditional guarantor of freedom of navigation in the region, is too busy fighting the disease to notice.Washington, though, is signaling we are not about to turn the entire military toward helping medical efforts in our cities. A new initiative Mr. Trump announced Wednesday will combat drug smugglers on the high seas in our hemisphere. Beyond the notorious Mexican-based drug cartels, the leaders of Venezuela, once a petroleum-exporter, are now major players in illicit drugs and arms markets.No wonder world diplomats remain agnostic about the prospect of an end to old wars and the dawn of an era of global unity in the face of a medical emergency. The new reality “could lead to more international cooperation — or towards more blaming and shaming” and therefore more hot wars, a UN diplomat told me this week.Americans will naturally hope for the former, but our security demands preparation for the latterd, because, if history is any guide, it will take more than a devastating pandemic to end the devastation of war.Twitter @bennyavni

UN Will Need More Than Corona Crisis To Ignite Peacemaking

UN Will Need More Than Corona Crisis To Ignite Peacemaking

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