The United States Is a Consensus Process.

The united states was told that it had to be a player in order to have any impact on the outcome of all this. And as you describe in the book, was sort of profoundly at odds with the culture of actual u. N resolutions and negotiations. The theory is that nobody gets stuck with anything they're truly unhappy with. Unfortunately, that doesn't really work out with regard to the united states. It's because the overwhelmingly powerful player in that kind of a system who says no isn't just like any other player who says no. That refusal to go along with the consensus process inevitably raises questions about the entire enterprise.