Lonewolf
You wrote:
<<What really annoys me, however, is the gutlessness. Note how the UN cut and ran, tail between legs, along with some of its donor nations, after the UN HQ in Baghdad was hit with a bomb in August 2003. >>
Was that not when Sergio di Mello was in charge there?
I seem to recall that he was pushing the line that the US had done its job and it would be better for them to leave Iraq at that point.
The only beneficiaries of this bombing were the Americans who happened to be doing the security at the site - if you wanted to hang around and grind Iraq into the dirt as a viable nation and potential future threat to Israel, and grab her oil, di Mello would have been in your way.
Along with di Mello, about 20 of his staff were killed - the UN got the message.
While there may be many detailed reasons attempting to justify regime change in Iraq, the three main drivers for aggressive military intervention by the US appear to be:
Oil;
Posing a real or potential threat to Israel;
Being a sovereign nationalistic state.
Without any of the above, I am sure that you can think of many appalling regimes that are allowed to carry on.
And you thought that the threat to real freedom of independent nations went with the demise of the Soviet Union, no doubt?