Standing up to the UN shows America’s greatness

It happened again last week. When the UN Security Council voted to condemn Israel for what happened along its border with Gaza — without even mentioning Hamas, let alone acknowledging the terror group’s responsibility for the violence — not a single nation joined the United States in opposing the motion. When UN Ambassador Nikki Haley then put forward a separate measure condemning Hamas, the rest of the council either voted no or abstained.

That leaves Americans asking whether fears about having the rest of the world aligned against us are more important than pride in being willing to stand up and do the right thing, even if it means being alone.This isn’t the only time the US has stood alone recently and it’s got the foreign-policy establishment as well as America’s European allies up in arms. The same thing happened when President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and when he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. His critics took the refusal of America’s Western European allies to agree as a sign that his administration’s foreign policy is doomed to fail.

By contrast, they point to the Obama administration’s popularity with the international community, which cheered as Barack Obama championed an effort to appease and end the isolation of the Islamist regime. They were pleased as Obama sought to put more “daylight” between the US and Israel and by his allowing the Security Council to condemn Israel. Much of the world also approved of Obama’s decision to punt responsibility for the slaughter in Syria and much else to Russia.

Obama’s love affair with international organizations like the UN was at the heart of his faith in multilateralism. While not every interaction during that time began with an apology for all of America’s alleged sins, there was little question that he wanted the world to know that the era when the US could impose its will or its values on other nations seemed to be over.