UN rule in Bosnia shows how A-to-Z system already exists--just badly

■"In Postwar Bosnia, Overruling Voters To Save Democracy: International Overseer Purges Elected Officials at Will; 'Why Me?' Gets No Reply," by Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, 1 October 2004, p. A1.

Paddy Ashdown is the "high representative" of Bosnia, or basically an international servant serving as a modern-day "MacArthur" for the long-term occupation/Sys Admin work conducted there by a coalition of major Core states. Who appointed this guy? Why, the very same Core countries which are currently paying the most money and/or putting the most troops on the ground Bosnia. These Core states (plus Turkey) basically serve as the Functioning Executive for the Sys Admin peacekeeping/reconstruction effort that's gone on in Bosnia for close to a decade now.

In effect, we see in Yugoslavia all the aspects of the A-to-Z Core rule set on how to process politically bankrupt statesójust done ad hoc along the way. The UN Security Council indicted Milosevic up front, but nothing happened until this collection of major Core states came together andóin an executive function formatódecided to take him down. Who performed the take down? Why, the U.S. military serving as Leviathan, accompanied by a few close friends in far smaller numbers. Then who took over? That would be an international peacekeeping force where the American forces ended up forming only a small portion of the troops. Then who ran the reconstruction? An ad hoc sort of Marshall Plan is being run by this Paddy Ashdown, in what can be described as a stand-alone mini-IMF-like effort very much in line with what I describe as an International Reconstruction Fund. Where is Milosevic today? He stands trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. There it is: my entire 6-step system of UNSC, Functioning Executive, Leviathan, Sys Admin, IRF, and ICC.

See! I'm not making this stuff up!

So when people tell me my A-to-Z system is "unrealistic," I respond that we have it in bits and pieces all over the place, and that we've actually built and used this system in an ad hoc fashion over time since the end of the Cold War. We couldn't get it together very effectively for Iraq, so that's gone awfully badly (no surprise), but clearly the system as a whole is looking for this rule set, and it will come about not because I say so, but simply because that's what's needed right now in history.