Non-Aligned Security Council?

When the two sides started exchanging fire at the end of the first week of August, while the rest of the world was absorbed with the Olympics spectacle, the expected reaction from the Security Council did not take place. Another "asymmetrical" war started - the great power, Russia, with 140 million citizens, fighting against Georgia with less than five million inhabitants. The international law was evidently breeched, and it reminded a lot - by the images of civilian casualties, files of devastated people leaving their homes, destroyed buildings in the bombed towns - of the familiar scenes in the Balkans in the 90's, when condemnations and resolutions from the building on the East River were not scarce.
The Security Council, the most powerful UN body and the only organ that has the right to legitimize use of military force by member states, this time became entangled in realpolitik. As one of the countries involved was one of its permanent members, there was no chance of a quick condemnation or a resolution. The role of the peacemaker therefore had to be performed by others, primarily by the agile French President Sarkozy, on behalf of the country that now holds the EU presidency.
If the Security Council does not react in situations like this, what purpose does it serve? The resolutions that have been adopted are rarely implemented, whether they refer to Palestine or Kosovo. Originally imagined as the guarantee of the world peace, this body, comprising five permanent members with special privileges and powers (the veto) and ten non-permanent members that sometimes feel like "tourists", once again came under the spotlights because of its ineffectiveness, which is accepted, however, as objective and unchangeable reality.
The question is 'Why unchangeable?' when, if a survey were conducted, most UN members would support the Security Council reform. The idea of reform is not new, anyway: the first discussions about it were launched in mid '60s and intensified in the 90's, when the fall of the Berlin Wall revealed that some solutions from the UN Charter were made obsolete by the new, post-Cold War realities.

The unusual idea about an alternative Security Council was launched at the end of July, from the podium of a gathering of 118 countries - a convincing majority in the UN - at the ministerial conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Teheran. It was presented in the speech of the host, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The world has entered a new phase in which the Non-Aligned Movement could become an alternative to the Security Council. Today more than ever, the NAM would be able to play a remarkable role in this new phase and solve global inequalities, remove discrimination, secure justice and eventually become the flag-bearer of the world peace, he said.
The current Council, the Iranian president believes, serves the interests of great powers, instead of acting in the best interest of all member states. Ahmadinejad also accused the SC for favoring Israel and did not miss the chance to remind that America was never officially criticized for its invasion of Vietnam or Iraq.
This statement naturally received global publicity, not so much for the originality of the idea or the possibility of its realization, as for the fact that it was presented by a leader of the country that is a source of global fears of a new, very dangerous war in the permanent

crisis area - the Middle East. Iran, namely, does not want to relinquish the development of its nuclear potentials, which Teheran claims will be used for exclusively civilian purposes (energy). At the same time, the United States claims that the Iranian leadership wishes to create a nuclear bomb, which, from Washington's perspective and in view of the nature of the Iranian regime, may become a threat to regional and global peace, and definitely to American interests. The possibility of a new war in the region is now seriously looming. It is unlikely that the US would bomb Iranian nuclear plants, while the forecasts that Israel may do so (as it did before with similar plants in Iraq and Syria) are more convincing. As regards the idea for the Non-Aligned Movement to become an alternative Security Council, the idea may be tempting,

but is unfeasible. The Non-Aligned Movement is in search of its new mission, after, with the end of the Cold War, it lost the role of the association that balanced between two opposing military and ideological blocs, the American and Soviet. But it somehow survived - foreign ministerial conferences and summits are still held every three years and final documents are adopted (mostly a wish list).
It may seem that the NAM countries, because there are so many of them, are an important factor in the UN General Assembly, but their number becomes insignificant when every country votes by putting its own interests first, not heeding much the ideas it voted for at the NAM conferences. This truth becomes self-evident when one starts to wonder what can Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Belarus, Singapore or Swaziland, and particularly sworn enemies like India and Pakistan, have in common.