"If the U.N. Security Council had been behaving in the way it ought to, it should have been saying all along that the United States was carrying out illegal acts by threatening force," says Stephen Shalom, professor of political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey. "The U.S. was in violation of the charter, and the council should have said so."

Bush Trashes the United Nations | Matthew Rothschild | April 2003 issue
Bush tarred the Security Council with the brush of irrelevance for not enforcing previous resolutions Iraq had flouted. He repeated the charge at his March 6 press conference: "The fundamental question facing the Security Council is, will its words mean anything? When the Security Council speaks, will the words have merit and weight?"

But Bush's insistence that the Security Council back up its resolutions is selective in the extreme. Iraq is not the only country to violate Security Council resolutions. In fact, it is not the country that violates the most resolutions. That distinction belongs to Israel, which has violated thirty-two Security Council resolutions. Turkey has violated twenty-four, and Morocco sixteen, according to Stephen Zunes, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and chair of its peace and justice studies program. By comparison, Iraq has violated seventeen resolutions.

Since Israel, Turkey, and Morocco are U.S. allies, Bush has not been browbeating the Security Council to make good on its word by threatening force against these countries. And you don't hear Bush talking about gathering a "coalition of the willing" to impose regime change in Jerusalem, Ankara, and Rabat. To see how outrageous Bush's action is, consider how Washington would have felt if Russia had told the U.N. Security Council that it was going to gather a "coalition of the willing" to impose regime change on those three countries. Bush, Congress, and the pundits would be condemning Russia as a reckless and renegade country. Today, the United States is that reckless and renegade country.

A mere glance back at the U.N. Charter reveals how far from its letter and spirit Bush has now traveled. Article 2, Section 3, states that "all members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means." And Article 2, Section 4, says, "All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Bush's entire discussion of "regime change," his mobilizing of more than 200,000 troops, and his constant threats of force since September are in clear violation of this article.
http://www.progressive.org/april03/roth0403.html