While the UN reveals itself toothless and useless in halting Zionist war crimes and genocide on Palestinians in Gaza, it has no qualms to reimpose sanctions on Iran for latter’s alleged nuclear and ballistic missile activities. This follows the collapse of talks between Iran and Western powers consequent on the unilateral US-Zionist strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Of course, the UN has been a spectator and did nothing even to denounce these naked violation of international law by Israel and US in bombing Iran.
At the same time, both US and EU are cunning to use the procedural provisions of UN Charter not to give both China and Russia any scope to use their “veto” as imperialist powers. It was part of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that the UN sanctions against it were temporarily waved. However, following bombing by Israel and US, Iran had withdrawn from the accord, exposing the total failure of Western diplomacy. It is in this context that the West has reactivated sanctions using the UN, overcoming objections from both Russia and China. For, according to Article 27 of the UN Charter, since a “reactivation” of a sanction by Security Council is “procedural” rather than “substantive”, it would not be subject to a veto by a member of the Permanent Five. And, the same UN and specialised agencies like IAEA had been spectators and thereby committing complicity while Israel, with the backing of US, was developing nuclear bombs in violation of all accepted international regulations.
Of course, it is common knowledge that the UN system including its Security Council was created by US, the supreme postwar global arbiter, to ensure the smooth running of the neocolonial order. However, during the Cold War, the UN’s task was, more or less, to camouflage the vicious neocolonial designs of US against world people. But in the post-Cold War neoliberal period, since US imperialist offensives, as manifested through its Iraq agression in the guise of Saddam’s acquisition of “weapons of mass destruction”, became naked, the UN itself has removed its mask and became hostage to US geopolitics. Thus, due to US veto, the UN cannot involve in the Palestine issue and it has become impossible for UN members to adopt a even resolution restraining the war crimes committed on Palestinians by Zionist regime, the Middle East military outpost of Yankees. The UN is even silent when its own staff and officials are slaughtered by Zionists with the backing of US. This has made the UN not only complicit in Zionist war crimes, but even made it an impotent international institution today. The UN is condemned to remain an onlooker while the inter-imperialist contradictions have taken the form of regional wars as in the case of Ukraine. Same is the case when crimes against humanity and genocides occur in different parts of the world.
Meanwhile, as the UN is increasingly exposed as a political tool of Anglo-Saxon imperialist bloc, and taking advantage of its relative weakening under Trumpism, both China and Russia have already started seeking alternative arrangements. Both have strategic alignments with Iran. For instance, China has openly stated it’s resolve “to support Iran in safeguarding its national sovereignty and dignity, resisting power politics and bullying, defending its legitimate rights and interests through political negotiation.” Russia, which is already facing US-EU sanctions, had close economic and military alliance with Iran. According to reports, few days ago, Tehran and Moscow have signed a $25bn deal to build four nuclear power reactors in southern Iran.
And, more striking is the development following Trump’s demand that Afghanistan should hand the country’s Bagram airbase over to Washington. Its immediate response was the Quadripartite Meeting of Foreign Ministers of China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan on the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2025. The outcome is the joint statement resolutely opposing the establishment of any “military bases in and around Afghanistan” along with the call for respecting the “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity” of Kabul.
The upshot of the argument is that the return or reactivation of the curbs on Iran by the toothless UN will be difficult to be enforced in the days ahead in view of the shift in power balance from West to the East. And what is going to be exposed is the very decadence and impotency of the UN itself. To be precise, weakening of the US-led Anglo-Saxon imperialist bloc will be reflected more in UN, it’s postwar political tool. As such, it is high time on the part of the international community to come forward for an alternative international institution with the motto “one nation, one vote” and for abolishing the “veto system” itself.
