There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The reality is that international institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.
The UN's unique legitimacy flows from a universal perception that it pursues a larger purpose than the interests of one country or a small group of countries.
Consider in 1945, when the United Nations was first formed, there were something like fifty-one original member countries. Now the United Nations is made up of 193 nations, but it follows the same structure in which five nations control it. It's an anti-democratic structure.
Can anything be more Un-American than the Un-American committee?
I believe nobody is stronger than the state. So the state would be strong, and we have to work altogether to make the strength of the state.
In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.
There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.
Like Canada, we very much wanted the United Nations to be a relevant and effective body. But once those efforts failed, we no longer saw things from a multilateral perspective. For us, now, it is much more basic than that. It is about family.
The UN structure is one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam.
The United Nations was not set up to be a reformatory. It was assumed that you would be good before you got in and not that being in would make you good.