Time for Decision Has Arrived
Lawrence Auster
July 20, 2001
After several days of deliberations in closed-door sessions, the final Program of Action of the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects is expected to be released this morning.
As throughout the conference, the major question on everyone's mind is what the United States will do. Will the U.S. agree to all the provisions in the Program of Action, will it seek some sort of compromise language, or will it reject the document?
Because the Program of Action is a consensus, non-binding instrument, the refusal of any member nation to approve it means it is not passed. Therefore everything depends on what the United States decides.
Since member states have 24 hours to respond to the final draft, that decision may not be announced until Saturday morning.
According to sources in the U.S. Mission, the decision will not be made by the U.S. delegates themselves, but by the White House.
President Bush therefore faces a choice with major political ramifications for himself. Gun-rights advocates, one of his major sources of electoral support, have urged that the U.S. walk away from this agreement.
If the president instead seeks a compromise, and if at the same time he gives the go-ahead on embryonic stem-cell research contrary to the wishes of the pro-life movement, he will have let down his two most important constituencies and perhaps be following the path of his father toward a one-term presidency.
More important than the political future of George W. Bush is whether the United States will continue to resist the powerful movement - supported by virtually all other U.N. member nations - toward global gun control.
Lawrence Auster can be reached at lawrence.auster@att.net.
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