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The Western powers, and in the first place the United States, present themselves as the guardians of democracy, human rights and international order, while often supporting the regimes they then denounce.
When we observe the long history of international relations since 1945, a recurring mechanism appears: authoritarian regimes, now dedicated to gemonies, have often been yesterday armed, financed, tolerated or covered by the same powers that now condemn them in the name of morality.
From Iran to Guatemala, from Chile to Iraq, from Libya to Cuba, there is a logic of state reason where strategic interest prevails over the principles proclaimed. Geopolitical monsters do not always appear against the international order: they are sometimes the most convenient products.
In this theatre, the United Nations is regularly accused of impotence, even though the veto architecture allows the great powers to neutralize the consistent application of the law they invoke elsewhere. This episode offers a critical reading of this structural contradiction from the cases of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, in a world where brute force tends to supplant the norm.
