President Biden delivered remarks at the United Nation’s General Assembly on Tuesday morning as leaders and representatives from 134 countries pour into New York City for the convention. Though notably, the heads of some top authoritarian nations embroiled in international conflicts across the globe will not be in attendance.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un will not be in attendance, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to give a speech Tuesday despite international pushback amid Tehran’s support for terrorism, interference in November’s U.S. election and assassination threats against American politicians, including former President Trump.
According to reports on Monday, Pezeshkian told reporters from New York, “We don’t want war … we want to live in peace.”
But his comments are not expected to be taken at face value, and Biden, who spoke ahead of the Iranian president, will “rally global action to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, speaks with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield before the start of a Security Council meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Oct. 24, 2023. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden outlined his administration’s priorities and vision for the international body in his last address to the U.N. as president.
According to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Washington has three major areas of focus it will emphasize during the week’s events, including continued efforts to “end the scourge of war” as roughly a quarter of the world’s population lives in “conflict-affected areas” amid mounting wars.
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The U.S. also plans to push other member nations to ramp up their support for humanitarian aid workers while also working to create a more “inclusive and effective international system” by adding two new permanent seats to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) for African nations as well as another rotating seat reserved for Small Island Developing States.
But as the Biden administration moves to shake things up in the international body while some authoritarian leaders are noticeably absent, one U.N. expert pointed to his concern that the U.N. is skirting the threats of today by holding a meeting focused on ambiguous concerns of tomorrow.
President Biden addresses the 78th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 19, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
“I wish [there was] a ‘Summit of the Present’ and not a ‘Summit of the Future,’ because the future gives us a chance to be gauzy,” Hugh Dugan, who served as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations and as senior adviser to 11 U.S. ambassadors to the U.N. between 1989 and 2015, told Fox News Digital in reference to the “Summit of the Future” event that was held over the weekend.
“A lot of hyperbole is going to be heard this week,” he added. “If it were the ‘Summit of the Present,’ that would imply accountability now, whether we’re effective now and whether the U.N. is efficient.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Biden walk to the Oval Office on Sept. 21, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Despite Thomas-Greenfield’s calls for “hope” during her Friday remarks, there was a notable sense of gloom ahead of the summit as massive international conflicts persist with no obvious end in sight, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel’s fight against Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah, the gang takeover of Haiti, and civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters last week that the Summit of the Future was a challenge issued to nations last year to come prepared and “was born out of a cold hard fact: International challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them.”
Guterres highlighted “out-of-control geopolitical divisions” and “runaway” conflicts, climate change and an unclear path forward in how to cope with artificial intelligence, which is an enormous issue that has prompted a race largely between the U.S. and China over how to develop and utilize it across multiple sectors, including military integration.
The Security Council meets at United Nations headquarters in New York City on Aug. 28, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Global institutions and frameworks are today totally inadequate to deal with these complex and even existential challenges,” he said. “And it’s no great surprise. Those institutions were born in a bygone era for a bygone world.
“We can’t create a future fit for our grandchildren with systems built for our grandparents,” he warned in a tone that is expected to carry throughout the summit.
But Dugan again pointed to the issue of accountability, and he questioned whether it is easier for the top U.N. official to push for major changes in the U.N. rather than evaluate any ongoing mismanagement of spending, bureaucracy and internal politics within the U.N.
Though 134 nations will attend this year’s event, the heads of two of the five permanent UNSC seats will be absent as China’s Xi and Russia’s Putin have sent delegations in their place, a move that has become increasingly common in recent years.
President Biden addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday for the final time as president. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
Dugan, who served on the National Security Council during the Trump administration where he dealt with international organizations, said this practice lets the authoritarian leaders avoid the need to answer tough questions largely derived from Western nations and their regional allies, but it also suggests they are “not concerned about showing disrespect.”
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When asked about what this means about the state of the U.N. and its legitimacy, in particular the U.N. Security Council, which has become sharply divided between the U.S., Britain and France versus Russia and China after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Dugan said he believes the U.N. Security Council continues to hold significant standing in the global community.
“I’m always of the view that it does have legitimacy,” he said. “It’s easy for us to say, well, it can’t get a consensus, or it doesn’t come to a conclusion that we seek and, therefore, say it’s not legitimate. I don’t believe that is the case.
“It’s true test of its ability is its ability to continue to convene people around the table,” Dugan continued. “Even if the head of state isn’t at that table, the delegations know it’s too dangerous not to be at that table.”