Hollow Appeal

April 03, 2026

Newspaper, Opinions, Editorials

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It is a striking irony that the Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council is now calling on the United Nations Security Council to authorise the use of force to protect the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian attacks. Tehran’s control over the strait has plunged the Gulf into crisis, yet appealing to the United Nations may be among the most futile responses available.

Concern, it seems, sharpens only when instability reaches the Gulf’s own doorstep. But the deeper issue is not selective outrage; it is the diminished capacity of the United Nations itself. The ongoing genocide in Gaza has rendered international law increasingly hollow, with Israel violating borders, norms of warfare, and basic principles of humanity without meaningful consequence, backed by a United States that has long resisted being bound by the same legal framework it champions for others.

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The result is a global order that no longer even pretends to be governed by rules. The principle of might is right has reasserted itself with brutal clarity. If a state can create facts on the ground and sustain them, it faces little risk of meaningful intervention. Appeals to international institutions have become symbolic gestures rather than viable strategies.

If the United Nations could not act decisively in the face of the most widely documented genocide in modern history, it is difficult to imagine it intervening effectively in a confrontation between regional powers, armed with advanced weaponry and supported by competing global patrons. Its paralysis is not incidental; it is structural.

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What remains, then, is an institution increasingly reduced to rhetoric, unable to enforce the very norms it was created to uphold. As the Middle East undergoes another phase of violent restructuring, it may not only be the region’s political order that is transformed, but also the illusion that the United Nations can still serve as a credible arbiter of peace.

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