Saadia Touval

Its diplomatic debacles in the past few years demonstrate one thing: the United Nations cannot mediate. It has too many mouths to speak with one voice, lacks the resources needed for political leverage, and diminishes the credibility of its own promises by its incoherence. Those problems are ingrained in the nature of international organizations, and no amount of revamping the United Nations will correct them. Instead, the United Nations should encourage self-interested states to mediate those conflicts they have the best chances of resolving. That is the best way to salvage the organization's steadily diminishing prestige.