Why the UN is so impotent

Washington Times:

At an Egyptian resort this week, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe preened with the other African leaders, seemingly oblivious to Security Council calls echoed by his peers that he negotiate with the opposition after a flawed election.

In Sudan's western Darfur region, a few thousand African peacekeepers continue to wait in parched misery for the 31,000 U.N.-backed reinforcements that the Sudanese government agreed to accept and were slated to begin arriving in December.

In Iran, physicists continue to enrich uranium deep beneath the earth in Natanz, despite three U.N. Security Council resolutions designed to halt the process for fear it would permit Iran to make nuclear weapons.

The inevitable question is: Why do some world leaders and their governments so flagrantly reject supposedly binding U.N. resolutions?

"A Security Council resolution carries a certain weight," said Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

"But the message is often weak or unclear," Mr. Schaefer said. "When [Saddam Hussein] wouldn't cooperate, the council would retaliate by passing yet another resolution.

...

The impotence in the face of Saddam's intransigence is certainly a factor as is the hostility to the US for liberating Iraq and trying to enforce those actions against Iraq. It is further hurt by its coop atmosphere where the one who will do the least is in charge of the maximum action that will be taken, i.e. Russia and China inhibit any vigorous reaction to the failure of states to comply.