Retired Dartmouth government professor and former executive director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System Gene Lyons argued in a lecture Wednesday that at this stage in international history, it is unwise for the United States to use unilateral military force against Saddam Hussein.
Lyons spoke with a serious demeanor to a group of 40 mostly Upper Value residents in the Rockefeller Center for nearly an hour, explaining the history of the United Nations to give historical context to the current situation with Iraq.
"Despite the role the U.S. has historically played," Lyons said, "recently there has been a tension between the U.S. and the international system."
Lyons gave several examples of recent U.S. foreign policy decisions that demonstrate this tension, such as the President George Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol and United States divestment from population-planning programs.
Though Lyons conceded that many politicians wish to write the United Nations off as irrelevant and that the United Nations is "not an effective instrument of American foreign policy," he maintained that the United States must not go into Iraq alone.
After he concluded his seminar, Lyons opened the floor to moderate discussion between audience members and to field questions from participants.
Audience members eagerly participated in the discussion, which lasted nearly as long as the lecture. Even though the lecture was mainly a general overview of the history of the United Nations, the discussion focused on the ramifications of U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
In regard to U.S. military intervention in Iraq, Dickey said, "It's not going to be neat," and "I am very pessimistic -- I fear we will have five new Talibans."
At a minimum, Lyons argued the United States must use the U.N. Security Council to find sufficient proof of an Iraqi security threat to rally her international allies. According to Lyons, the financial, military and social burden of rebuilding Iraq would be too difficult for the United States to take on.
Lyons also said he disapproved of President Bush's national security doctrine, which has too much of a "we will not seek compromise" attitude towards international politics.
Though the lecture was sponsored by a non-partisan public interest group, The League of Women Voters of the Upper Valley, most of the participants in the discussion were of the same mindset as Lyons and generally did not support President Bush's plans for military intervention.
Lyon's lecture was the first in a series of U.N.-related speeches at Dartmouth sponsored by the League of Women Voters.
