The United Nations' ability to send peacekeeping troops to East Timor and other flashpoints around the world is being held hostage by militant anti-abortion campaigners in the United States who are blocking the release of more than $1.5bn in unpaid UN dues.
Today the White House and Republican congressmen will embark on last-ditch negotiations which could determine whether abhorrence of abortion will override the US commitment to global peacekeeping and its desire for a voice at the UN.
It is a choice between isolationism and engagement which Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy to the UN, called "one of the most consequential decisions on US diplomacy since the end of the cold war."
Washington has met some of its UN obligations this year, but its arrears accumulated over the past decade have reached such proportions that unless it pays $212m by the end of December, the US will be ejected from the UN general assembly, losing its vote and casting doubt on the organisation's future.
The UN's financial crisis is already eroding its ability to keep peace. Developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Jordan and Malaysia currently are funding their own troop contributions to missions in the world's hotspots - in effect subsidising US delinquency - but they cannot afford to keep doing so indefinitely.
The UN is due to take over peacekeeping duties in East Timor early next year, with the departure of the current Australian-led force. But Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman in New York, said: "Under the current circumstances, it's hard to imagine how [UN troops] will be paid."
The US has been subjected to withering attacks from the world's diplomats for its refusal to pay its bills and is losing the sympathy of even its closest friends. The British ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock, told American reporters that the US had "muffled its voice and stained its reputation".
The US began holding back its UN contributions to force the top-heavy organisation to cut costs. After the UN cut more than 1,000 staff from its New York headquarters and created a powerful audit unit, the senate relented and voted to release $926m of the unpaid US contributions over three years, on condition that the 25% US share in UN funding was reduced.
But that proposal has been blocked by a group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by a combative New Jersey congressman, Christopher Smith. He has tacked on an amendment which would make payment of the arrears conditional on passing a law to ban US funding of family planning groups that support abortion rights abroad. President Clinton has vowed to veto any such bill.
The clash between globalism and isolationism has been a constant feature of the US foreign policy debate, but the current confrontation began in 1984 when Ronald Reagan issued an executive order cutting off funds to any international organisation promoting abortion rights. President Clinton overturned the order in 1993, but now Mr Smith is trying to enshrine the Reagan doctrine in US law.
As both sides broke off talks for Veterans' Day yesterday, they remained outwardly wedded to their positions. Mr Clinton has so far rejected the reportedly unanimous advice of his foreign policy team to seek a compromise, remaining loyal to his core women supporters.
Mr Smith and his supporters have rejected as toothless a softer variant of his bill which would cut US financing to family planning groups which lobby for abortions in countries only where such lobbying would be illegal.
But the pressure to clinch a deal is building. The impasse over UN payments is one of the last remaining obstacles to agreement between the White House and congress on next year's budget.
Whereas Republicans closed ranks last month to block the nuclear test ban treaty, the greatest isolationist victory in recent years, the party is split over the UN dues debate. Moderate Republicans are appealing to the rightwingers to relent, arguing that the row is saddling them with an obstructionist image.
"By seeming to be too cheap to pay our UN dues, Republicans will have needlessly handed the Democrats an issue for the 2000 campaign," the conservative Weekly Standard magazine argued.
Lasting debts and the cash coming in
• Main delinquent countries with arrears to UN (in millions of dollars):
1 US 1,523
2 Ukraine 212
3 Russia 115
4 Japan 114
5 Brazil 63
6 Belarus 53
7 Italy 27
8 France 22
9 Germany 19
10 Argentina 18
Total arrears: 2,360 (of which peacekeeping budget: 1,760; regular UN operating budget: 566; Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals: 34)
• Main contributors this year (to October 31, in millions of dollars, including regular operations, peacekeeping and tribunals budgets)
1 US 599
2 Japan 396
3 Germany 195
4 France 142
5 UK 111
6 Italy 107
7 Canada 55
8 Spain 52
9 Netherlands 32
10 Russia 32
Source: UN
