The need to reform the UN
Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt, July 12
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the UN, commemorated against a backdrop of escalating global turmoil: a large-scale military conflict between Russia and the West in Ukraine, the near-total collapse of US-Russia relations, and a complete freeze in arms control negotiations. Simultaneously, tensions between the US, its Western allies, and China have evolved beyond mere competition over trade and technology, transforming into a full-fledged strategic confrontation.
Violence continues to engulf the Middle East – from Libya and Sudan to Yemen and Syria – alongside the ongoing, inhumane Israeli massacre in Gaza. Israel has also struck targets inside Iran, intensifying an already volatile regional conflict, while the US has further inflamed tensions by launching a precision military strike on at least three Iranian nuclear facilities.
The UN, established to prevent a third world war and the recurrence of catastrophic human losses, was envisioned as the primary forum for resolving such crises. Yet the unrestrained use of force by nations, particularly by the Security Council’s permanent members and their close allies, has rendered the institution alarmingly impotent.
A glaring example came when the US vetoed a resolution calling for a permanent and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the release of hostages, and the removal of humanitarian restrictions. Such actions erode the credibility of the UN’s political organs, most notably the Security Council, which increasingly appears to act only when it serves the interests of the two dominant global powers.
As the UN General Assembly convenes in the fall of 2025, President Donald Trump is expected to deliver a scathing address, accusing the organization of rampant inefficiency, corruption, and bureaucratic excess, and reiterating his demand for sweeping reforms. Yet despite its shortcomings, I remain a committed supporter of the UN, which, however flawed, remains the world’s most viable platform for multilateral diplomacy. With 193 member states – and the possibility of Palestine becoming the 194th – the UN continues to represent a crucial space for international cooperation.
It is evident that most countries prefer to resolve global disputes within the institutional framework of the UN rather than through unilateral or ad hoc arrangements. Nevertheless, frustration with the organization’s performance is mounting, and serious calls for reform are growing louder, aimed not at dismantling the UN but at reactivating and strengthening it.
Three core demands form the foundation of this reform agenda across the UN system, its specialized agencies, and the Bretton Woods institutions. First, expanding the size of critical bodies like the Security Council to 24 or 25 members, including at least two permanent seats for Africa. Second, establishing checks on the misuse of veto power and curbing the General Assembly’s potential overreach. And third, democratizing decision-making by reducing the disproportionate voting influence of wealthier nations, particularly within global financial institutions.
Critics may dismiss such reforms as unrealistic, particularly given Washington’s historical resistance to limiting great-power prerogatives. Yet this overlooks key historical precedents – most notably the US-sponsored Resolution 377, “Uniting for Peace,” adopted in 1950 to circumvent Soviet obstruction of Security Council action during the Korean War. That resolution affirmed the General Assembly’s right to convene in emergency special sessions when the Security Council fails to uphold its responsibilities.
Across the UN’s eight-decade history, the Security Council has repeatedly faltered when permanent members or their allies were directly implicated, creating stalemates that ultimately harm both permanent and non-permanent members alike. For this reason, advancing the three aforementioned reform proposals is not merely desirable; it is essential.
Initiatives like UN80, launched in March 2025, alongside the Charter for the Future and the broader UN 2.0 vision, aim to revitalize the organization by modernizing its operations, updating its priorities, and addressing financial challenges. These include relocating some agencies from high-cost New York to more affordable cities like Nairobi.
To push these reforms forward, intermediate states, nonpermanent UN members from all regions, must form a broad coalition committed to comprehensive political, economic, and administrative reform of intergovernmental organizations. This effort must be principled, impartial, and grounded in the belief that only a revitalized multilateral order can maintain the credibility of global governance.
The UN’s 80th anniversary presents a historic opportunity to enact these long-overdue reforms. If we fail to act, we risk allowing this milestone to become a tragic marker of decline when the world’s foremost international institution slid into irrelevance, and future generations looked back on this moment as the beginning of its end. – Nabil Fahmy
The Arab Levant teetering between dreams and deals
Asharq Al-Awsat, London, July 13
In recent days, a swirl of speculation has emerged around a new Middle Eastern “concoction,” reportedly involving Syria relinquishing the Golan Heights to Israel in exchange for compensation on the Lebanese coast.
Public reactions from Lebanese factions have, unsurprisingly, been loud and condemnatory. Yet anyone attuned to regional power dynamics, and the extent of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on Washington’s Middle East agenda, should regard this development with the seriousness it demands. The release of this politically “cooked” news coincides not only with Israel tightening its control over Iranian airspace and escalating its strikes inside Iranian territory, but also with the deepening convergence of quiet strategic understandings among Washington, Tel Aviv, and Ankara.
This realignment is taking shape amid a series of unresolved crises in the region, from the Kurdish question to the remnants of the Palestinian issue. Some observers now believe that the Washington-Tel Aviv axis has recalibrated its approach to the sectarian complexities of the Arab Levant. This shift, at least for now, emerged after the transition from the Obama and Biden administrations to that of Donald Trump.
The irony, of course, lies in the fact that it was the right-wing factions, the US Republican Party and Israel’s Likud, that initially championed “political Shi’ism” in the region before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Back then, America’s neoconservative movement, intimately connected to the Israeli Right, was at the helm, steering US foreign policy through key advisers in the White House and civilian operatives within the Pentagon under president George W. Bush.
It was a time when the US was grappling with the trauma of the September 11 attacks, a moment the neoconservatives seized upon to justify the occupation of Iraq, eventually delivering it into Iran’s orbit. US civil administrator Paul Bremer even proudly proclaimed that his administration had “ended a thousand years of Sunni rule” in Iraq.
From 2003 to the present, much has changed. Initially, despite their rhetorical support for the Arab Spring, Democrats, along with the Israeli establishment, refused to back the Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad. They later remained largely silent as Iran intervened militarily to shore up the Assad regime.
Meanwhile, Democratic leadership placed its hopes in the Iran nuclear agreement, reached after secret negotiations in Muscat. This deal, and the Obama and Biden administrations’ posture toward Tehran, emboldened Iran to expand its regional influence unchecked. In contrast, Netanyahu and the Likud maintained a long-standing discomfort with Iran’s encroachment into the Arab world, a discomfort rooted more in strategic calculation than ideology.
The truth is that Israel has benefited more than any other country from Iran’s expanded role in the region. Tehran’s shadow served as a convenient pretext for Arab governments to rush toward normalization with Israel, seeking protection from the very menace that bolstered Netanyahu’s own geopolitical standing. Israel, for its part, never took seriously the loud rhetoric of “resistance” regimes and their affiliated parties, so long as the borders remained calm, and the potential for territorial expansion remained open.
In many ways, the events of Oct. 7, 2023, in Gaza echoed the seismic effect of 9/11. That day triggered a fundamental shift in how regional alliances were approached and reordered the strategic priorities of key actors. While the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is undeniable, the more ominous signal may have been Netanyahu’s explicit vow to “change the Middle East.” In Donald Trump, he found a willing partner, an ideal collaborator to redraw the regional map on the rubble of political entities they’ve long viewed as irrelevant, and at the expense of populations that have never figured meaningfully into their calculations.
The palestinian future, bleak as it has often been, has not appeared this hopeless since 1948. As for Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq – nations whose borders were carved out by Sykes-Picot and cemented by the Balfour Declaration – they now face the possibility of a new chapter in which Turkey emerges as the region’s second most dominant power, behind Israel.
Within Lebanon, extremist non-Sunni sectarian factions would, by all indications, be willing to forfeit more than half of the country’s Sunni population if it meant securing border and governmental guarantees for Christians and Shi’ites from Washington and Tel Aviv. A sizable number of Lebanese Christians have already abandoned the concept of “Greater Lebanon,” which was formalized in 1920 and incorporated many of these northern Sunni areas. Similarly, Shi’ite hardliners may well welcome a new demographic balance that diminishes the Sunni presence and tips the scales in their favor.
As for Syria, the possibility now exists for a reconfigured national makeup, one that bolsters the Sunni majority while addressing the longstanding grievances of Alawite, Christian, Druze, and Kurdish minorities, perhaps through a US-Turkish arrangement. In parallel, developments in the Kurdish sphere, spanning the Syrian-Iraqi border, suggest that major deals and radical shifts are already underway. But do the dream scenarios align with the actual details of these high-stakes negotiations? Or are we simply wandering once more through the familiar maze of trial and error? – Eyad Abu Shakra
Collapse to resilience: Lebanon’s last chance for development
An-Nahar, Lebanon, July 12
Lebanon stands at a perilous crossroads. After six years of relentless crisis that has eviscerated its currency, hollowed out its institutions, and shattered public confidence, the country’s social and economic foundations are not merely crumbling – they lie in ruins. With over 80% of the population living in multidimensional poverty, public services on life support, and an informal economy spiraling beyond control, the path to recovery is not just arduous; it is almost impossible.
Yet even amid this bleak landscape, a sliver of hope remains. If Lebanon is to escape the trap of fragility and stagnation, it must commit to a bold new development model, one rooted in inclusion, resilience, and reimagined governance. This is not a plea for incremental reform. It is a demand for structural transformation.
The convergence of a catastrophic financial collapse, the reverberations of the COVID-19 pandemic, the devastation of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and a persistent political vacuum have dragged Lebanon’s GDP from $52 billion in 2019 to under $18 billion by 2023. Public revenues, which once constituted 21% of GDP, have plunged to 6.3%, leaving the state incapable of delivering even the most basic services. Meanwhile, the informal sector has surged, now accounting for over 62% of total employment.
Workers in this shadow economy – construction laborers, domestic workers, freelance teachers, shopkeepers, and microbusiness owners – endure precarious conditions, with no health coverage, job security, or social protections. Many earn less than $200 a month. More than half lack formal contracts. Women, refugees, and migrant workers bear the brunt, left most vulnerable to poverty, violence, and exploitation.
This explosion of informal work is not merely a social crisis; it is an economic ticking time bomb. Lebanon forfeits an estimated 4.8% of its GDP each year in lost tax revenues from the informal sector, a shortfall that deepens fiscal collapse and further erodes citizen trust. Worse still, informal work entrenches inequality, stifles productivity, and paralyzes the country’s capacity to withstand future shocks.
The 2023 UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) “Development Challenges” report presents an equally grim portrait. Lebanon ranks among the worst in the region across three critical dimensions: human development, environmental sustainability, and governance. It now sits in the bottom quartile of ESCWA’s newly developed Economic Resilience Index, which gauges industrial sophistication, financial stability, and capacity for recovery.
On debt sustainability, Lebanon ranks 121st out of 122 countries surveyed – an indictment of its broken political economy and sovereign default. Yet perhaps most alarming is the sharp rise in inequality. Between 2010 and 2021, Lebanon’s development inequality index deteriorated more rapidly than in nearly any other Arab country. This is not a statistical anomaly – it reflects a society riven by widening income gaps, regional disparities, and inequitable access to healthcare, education, and opportunity. The crisis is made even more severe by the state’s inadequate and often delayed response. While social safety nets have been expanded on paper, they remain drastically underfunded.
Programs such as the Emergency Social Safety Net and the National Poverty Targeting Program have reached only a fraction of those in need and suffer from bureaucratic delays, missing data, and institutional fragility. Worse, the government’s crisis response has been marred by mistrust, exclusion, and opacity. Instead of engaging local communities, trade unions, or informal sector actors, the state has doubled down on ad hoc cash transfers, inefficient subsidies, and murky disbursements of foreign aid, exacerbating frustration rather than building resilience.
Lebanon's road to recovery must begin with a paradigm shift: recognizing the informal sector not as a temporary coping strategy but as a permanent, vital component of the economy. Formalization is not about squeezing more taxes out of the vulnerable; it is about offering pathways to dignity, stability, and shared prosperity.
Policy solutions are not a mystery. Simplified business registration, one-stop administrative centers, digital identity and payment systems, and targeted tax incentives have proven effective in countries from Indonesia to Mexico. Lebanon must adapt and implement these tools, especially for micro and small enterprises, which make up 96% of the business landscape.
Simultaneously, the country must build a national social registry – a data-driven platform for delivering transparent, targeted, and responsive support to the most vulnerable.
Without such an infrastructure, any attempt at recovery will be doomed from the outset. The cornerstone of reform must be governance. This means restoring judicial independence, empowering anticorruption bodies, and insulating the public administration from political meddling. It also means reorienting economic policy away from rent-seeking and toward value creation.
Lebanon still has assets: human capital, entrepreneurial energy, and a dynamic diaspora willing to help. But time is running out. Every delay worsens inequality, pushes more young people to emigrate, and expands the space for black markets and illicit networks.
The longer Lebanon waits, the greater the likelihood it slides into full state failure along the Mediterranean. Recovery begins by confronting a painful truth: Lebanon cannot return to the old normal. A new social contract must emerge, one that places the dignity of labor, the universality of social protection, and the integrity of public institutions at its core. This is not utopia. It is the bare minimum for survival. – Diane Samer Al-Labban
The erosion of justice in Iraq
Al Mada, Iraq, July 15
We are living through an election season that feels more like a war, with over 8,000 candidates battling for seats in the House of Representatives. At the same time, activists are arrested simply for demanding the most basic ideals of a functioning state – social justice, public services, and human dignity.
But these are not things citizens are supposed to ask for; what is expected of them is to offer endless praise to politicians and to thank God for the privilege of their presence in our lives. Amid this theater, news broke of the demolition of the grave of Safaa Al Sarai, one of the most iconic figures of the October protests, whose skull was shattered by a so-called government tear gas canister.
Rather than consoling his family, the ruling parties emerged with grotesque accusations, branding him a foreign agent and a saboteur. Days ago, a preacher opened his sermon by cursing October and those who dared to participate in it. He openly wished for the destruction of the graves of all October’s martyrs, and it began with Safaa Al Sarai.
There are clearly those who take pleasure in haunting the dead, persecuting martyrs even after burial. Political parties, in coordination with state institutions, deployed every form of violence – from live bullets to tear gas – because the youth of October dared to run a red light on Iraq’s sham road to democracy. Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi could not even tolerate criticism, declaring openly that the demonstrators “want destruction.”
But the most dangerous development Iraq has witnessed in the past 22 years is the erosion of the very notion of justice. Millions of Iraqis live in poverty, while a privileged few gorge on power and wealth. When photos of Safai’s vandalized grave circulated on social media, not a single member of parliament, not even those who climbed to power on the backs of the Tishreen movement, voiced outrage or condemnation. No one flinched.
Worse still, we seem to have developed a collective deafness to such disgraceful acts. We are a people whose conscience is numb, whose emotions have been stripped of compassion. We have accepted the role of spectators. Some of us are even fully immersed in the sectarian spectacle, while newspapers and satellite channels distract us with the empty dramas of counterfeit politicians.
I have written from this very place about governments that honor their people and cherish the value of life. Never did I imagine that there were political forces so depraved they would desecrate graves. Yet here we are, all complicit through silence, through apathy, through our willingness to shrug off injustice as “someone else’s problem.” As long as the crime is not at our doorstep, we feel safe. But what happened to Safaa Al Sarai’s grave should fill every one of us with shame. We stood by and watched our collective tragedy unfold, refusing to speak even the smallest word in protest, despite knowing that speech is, at times, the last defense against evil.– Ali Hussein
Translated by Asaf Zilberfarb. All assertions, opinions, facts, and information presented in these articles are the sole responsibility of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of The Media Line, which assumes no responsibility for their content.