This mini-league of nations would cause only division

John McCain wants to create a new alliance to circumvent the UN. We mustn't let this idea gain consensus in Washington

• Shashi Tharoor
• The Guardian,
• Tuesday May 27 2008

Amid the continuing brouhaha about issues of race and gender in the US presidential campaign, we may be in danger of losing sight of the most important question that has arisen in the candidates' skirmishing over international affairs. That relates to John McCain's advocacy of the establishment of a "league of democracies", and the mounting clamour for Barack Obama to espouse the same idea as his own.

McCain says he'd establish the league in his first year in office: a close-knit grouping of like-minded nations that could respond to humanitarian crises and compensate for the UN security council's tendency to be hamstrung by the likes of Russia and China when it needs to take decisive action against the world's evil-doers. Neocon guru Robert Kagan, an avid proponent, says: "The world's democracies could make common cause to act in humanitarian crises when the UN security council cannot reach unanimity." The league's strength would be that it "would not be limited to Europeans and Americans but would include the world's other great democracies, such as India, Brazil, Japan and Australia, and would [therefore] have even greater legitimacy".