US succeeds at crippling small arms conference

July 8th, 2006 at 11:11 Björn Hallberg

Predictably, the US spearheaded the effort that finally crippled the UN small arms conference.

A U.N. meeting meant to expand a five-year-old crackdown on the illicit global trade in small arms ended in chaos on Friday as delegates ran out of time without reaching agreement on a plan for future action.

“There was a total meltdown at the end. You don’t know if it was a conspiracy or just a screw-up,” said one delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other nations may have interfered with the preferred outcome but it was only due to America’s declared intent to misbehave that they were provided with temporary cover to do so. Once again, the US is effectively leading by example and lowering the bar, but is at the same time able to deflect some of the blame by using its immense clout in international relations.

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