Weekend Roundup: Where the UN Can Succeed Instead of Fail

The Paris climate accord, signed by 175 countries in April, was a high point of success for the United Nations. And the U.N. has also managed to focus governments around the world on sustainable development goals. Yet, on the security side of the equation, for which the U.N. was principally founded, the record is largely one of failure.

The international body has been unable to stop the carnage in Syria. North Korea continues to defy every successive U.N. resolution over its nuclear program. The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 without U.N. sanction -- just as the former Soviet Union similarly invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and Czechoslovakia before that. The Vietnam and Korean wars were ended without U.N. involvement. And the U.N. had no role in the treaty between Egypt and Israel mediated by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

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