THE U.N. HAS 5 SEATS TO FILL

The United Nations security is composed of 4 permanent members (China, France, Russia, and the U.K.-also known as the "nuclear club"), and 10 nations who are voted in for two year terms, and are not subject to immediate reelection. The Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, South Africa and the Panama will serve until December 31st, 2008, which leaves the UN with the ultimate question of who to replace outgoing countries Qatar, Slovakia, Peru, Ghana and the Congo. Moreover, the U.N. has also been pressured for years to adopt additional permanent members, two of which are India and Japan.

Who cares, you might ask. Remember (present current events aside), the U.N. Security Council is the only body which can grant permission to violate a country's sovereignty against the will of that country. If the council votes to allow an invasion of country X, for whatever reason, there is no recourse, no court of appeals. Country X can do nothing but complain and prepare for the military attack. The council can also authorize other violations of sovereignty short of invasion: sanctions, no-fly zones, inspections, etc. This is an enormous amount of power.

Also keep in mind that just because the council is the only group with the treaty authority to do these things, it doesn't mean individual countries and groups of countries won't also do things like invade or impose sanctions. The recent incursion of Ethiopian troops into Somalia was not authorized by the Security Council. Sanctions on Iraq, the no-fly zones, and the inspection of suspected weapons facilities in Iraq were all blessed by the world through the Security Council. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, was not.

The trouble comes when attempting to get the 15 members to agree on any given action is quite difficult. Especially since the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) all have veto authority.

Any one of them can single-handily stop any given action.

And that is the power of being a permanent member.

So reform of the existing council is clearly seen as important to the world and to America. But plans for doing so have come and gone for years. The most realistic ones include expanding the number of total seats, creating some permanent seats without veto power, and imposing various limits on the existing veto. Critics argue that each continent should be represented. Among the countries vehemently campaigning for a spot on the security council are France, Japan, India, Mexico, among others. Next year the security council will include 4 from Europe alone, and Panama will stay another year as its sole Latin country.

Obviously Mexico is almost a shoo-in for a spot (and made a very strong case for election on Wednesday). But who to replace Qatar from the Middle East (Arab League)? Egypt, Brazil, Germany, Vietnam, and the Saudis are all candidates who would achieve a number of votes among the general assembly for admission.

Think the U.N. Security Council is a powerless body? Remember, they were making real progress with their inspections of Iraq (Blix) before we invaded. Hussein was finally cooperating, and the inspection report was no proof of weapons of mass destruction, a finding disputed by the Bush administration, although the test of time has proven Mr. Blix absolutely correct (for the most part). One has to wonder what the course of history would have been if the Bush administration had stayed the course and let the U.N. inspectors complete their assignment.

The results would be one less war, a continuation of our anti-terrorism work in Afghanistan (which was working), and around 4,000 soldiers who would be happily alive today.