American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, says of the Obama administration's re-engagement with the UN

"We are involved in the United Nations because it serves U.S. interests. It is there to deal with very complex cases like North Korea, where we recently succeeded in putting in place the toughest sanctions regime in the world today. It's there to deal with conflicts that are killing innocent civilians in places like Congo and Darfur. So we have an interest in effective collective action to deal with these 21st century challenges."

And hasn't the UN been doing a spanking good job of solving the conflicts and preventing the deaths of innocent civilians in the Congo and Darfur??

A single visit to North Korea from a former US president made more impression on Kim Jung-il than years and years of negotiations by UN ambassadors. Other countries don't give a shit about the UN, they are only worried about, interested in, impressed by, and trying to impress snd get attention from, the world's only real superpower, the US.