Old Boys' Clubs must widen membership to have a global impact

So Russia has done the "incomprehensible" and blocked Gordon Brown and George Bush over tough sanctions on Robert Mugabe.

Some commentators blame miscalculation by a tired British Prime Minister trying to shock world leaders with images of a tortured body to drive home his case for change in Zimbabwe. But perhaps all that's been revealed is Britain's real place in ...

And thanks to the legacy of Iraq, the reality of oil and the power of regional politics, it's nowhere near the helm.

The fuss made around the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005 may have distracted us from some important truths. The world's eight richest nations are not necessarily the world's most powerful nations, or indeed the world's most effective nations in getting any particular problem solved or contained. And even for its members, the G8 is not the only club in town. Gordon Brown's call for sanctions against Zimbabwe did win support from Russia at the G8 summit, when the members committed themselves to an arms embargo, more financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 of his officials, and the creation of a UN special envoy.

But a few days later at the UN Security Council meeting, Russia, with China and South Africa, vetoed virtually the same proposals.

Illogical and frustrating – but should we worry? Amid all our own domestic crises, the British public may not be overly concerned about a former Communist state acting strangely over a remote foreign policy issue, especially when that issue is Zimbabwe, whose president derives extra life-force from every British attempt to thwart him.

But yes, we should worry. Economics has changed the world order but cigars and self-interest has dominated the G8 and the UN Security Council, and this latest voting debacle should sound major alarm bells. What is the point of a G8 that managed to discuss Mugabe without an African leader present; global warming without the emerging world represented (thus ignoring half of global growth); the dollar without China (to whom the Americans are massively indebted) or oil prices without Saudi Arabia? With this latest snub over Zimbabwe, the Old Boys' Clubs of world politics suddenly look old, irrelevant and impotent.

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Comments

[bryan]

Robert Mugabe is doing his job splendidly. He is, in effect, doing the same job Adolf Hitler did : Uniting a continent against a common enemy to herald an African Union (like our European Union)- something easier brought under control by the One World government of the United Nations.
They create Wars to achieve a weird kinda peace, i.e. Ireland ... divide the country in two, get them at each others throats, negotiate a treaty, now they're all serving the U.N. in Afghanistan etc ..
So, from the New World Orders' perspective, Mugabe is doing a splendid job :)