Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to pose a kind of essay-style question.
An international relations student who is a realist might argue today that the United Nations has been a failure. We saw that with the failure to deal with some of the big problems and issues. With Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, the United Nations was largely absent or unable to respond in both cases, and it was left to other multilateral organizations or informal alliances or individual powers. Even today, where you see issues like Iran or the Palestinian process, where the United Nations is involved, it's an add-on, where one might argue that others are carrying the real freight. Other partners in the United Nations are there to provide, perhaps, an air of legitimacy, but they're not really the vehicle that's driving the process.
In view of that, this person might make the proposition that it's best to leave the United Nations to act in areas where there's broad consensus, and for other areas where there is not broad consensus, to look to informal alliances or other alliances or ad hoc groupings or initiatives to get things done. Would you agree with that proposition, or would you disagree, and why?