Let’s state the obvious. The UN has not stopped wars. It has not even seriously tried. From Ukraine to Gaza, Syria to Sudan, the UN has been a spectator — issuing statements, passing resolutions, wringing its hands — but never preventing or ending conflict. If anything, its empty posturing has given tyrants a shield of legitimacy while leaving victims to their fate.
Worse still, the UN has inverted the moral compass of democracies. Its grand stage routinely elevates dictators, despots, and terror-sympathisers, giving them a microphone to denounce free nations while their own citizens languish in oppression. The very body that claims to stand for human rights has become a platform for those who trample them.
Consider the UN’s sprawling agencies:
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The WHO, once a public health authority, now trying to dictate policy to sovereign nations under the guise of pandemic “preparedness.”
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The Human Rights Council (UNHRC), stacked with members whose own records on rights are abysmal, sometimes even chairing the body — a grotesque parody of justice.
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UNRWA, the agency supposedly tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees, exposed as employing staff with ties to Hamas and even aiding in terrorism.
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The UN’s open borders agenda, pushing migration policies that erode the ability of nations to control their own frontiers.
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Climate Change advocacy, repackaged as “wealth redistribution” from democracies to “developing nations.” Developing? China, the world’s second-largest economy, military giant, and technological powerhouse, is still classified as “developing” so it can collect concessions.
And then there is Israel. No country has been subjected to more disproportionate condemnation than the Middle East’s only democracy. Resolution after resolution targets Israel, while regimes in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, and China — genuine human rights abusers and aggressors — are spared anything like the same scrutiny. The bias is blatant, the hypocrisy staggering.
The UN’s failures are not accidents. They flow from its design: a body where numbers matter more than principles, and where blocs of authoritarian states dictate outcomes. The result is predictable: democracies are lectured, terrorists are appeased, sovereignty is eroded, and freedom is diminished.
The conclusion is unavoidable. Democratic nations need to ask themselves why they continue to bankroll and legitimise an organisation that has so plainly lost its way. Membership should not be unconditional. Participation should not be a blank cheque. If the UN cannot reform — and it shows no interest in doing so — then democracies must band together, assert control over its excesses, and, if necessary, walk away.
The UN was meant to prevent the scourge of war and promote peace. Instead, it has become a theatre of hypocrisy, a megaphone for tyrants, and a drain on the resources of the very nations it undermines. Trump was right. The time for illusions is over.
