Probably the Council's discussions did have the effect of magnifying the pressure of outside opinion on the Soviet Union. The Security Council was given a watching brief in a dispute which was primarily negotiated between the parties themselves. By capitalising, in its first resolution, on the expressed desire of both parties to negotiate a solution, and by calling for regular reports on these negotiations, the Council made the Soviet Union publicly accountable for its actions. The question could no longer be regarded as a purely private or local conflict between two neighbouring states. This may well have had some effect.
But it is probable that Soviet policy here, as in many other cases at this time, was experimental and improvised. There was probably never any firm plan to annex, or even to occupy permanently, Azerbaijan, nor perhaps even to obtain any particular concession as the price for withdrawal. But the presence of Soviet forces, and the concern of the Iranian Government to see them withdrawn (not to speak of the undoubted unpopularity of the Iranian Government among many in Azerbaijan), presented a heaven-sent opportumty to seek some political quid pro quo - the granting of an oil concession, the accordance of autonomy for the province, even possibly the continued presence of Soviet forces, as an inducement to a transfer of power. As soon as she found she had the Security Council looking over her shoulder at every move, her bargaining power, in what was originally a somewhat unequal confrontation, was weakened, while the moral authority of the Iranian Government in demanding the return of its own territory was correspondingly strengthened.
Even the timing of various Soviet moves supports the thesis that the pressure of publicity in the Council had some impact. The first general undertaking to negotiate for the withdrawal of Soviet forces was given by the Soviet Union shortly after the first Security Council resolution, on 30 January. The first evacuation of forces from Azerbaijan began on 24 March, immediately after the next Iranian complaint to the Council and two days before the Council was to meet. The evacuation was finally completed on or about 6 May, precisely the deadline laid down by the Council, and not long before a subsequent meeting was scheduled. While the Soviet Union would doubtless have liked to secure concessions, she was reluctant openly to defy the Council before the eyes of all the world to achieve that end. So, it would appear, the actions of a powerful member of the organisation had been at least significantly influenced by the actions the Council had decided to take.
But the episode also showed the Council's ultimate weakness in dealing with such situations. It never had the means of compelling the Soviet Union to withdraw if she had chosen to resist. Even the proposed Security Council force, ifit had been established, would have been powerless in such a case. If the Council had any influence at all, it was through publicity and moral authority rather than its physical power. The Azerbaijani issue was scarcely the most momentous in the organisation's history. But it did, in the first months of its life, underline the basic fact of the Security Council's situation: the organisation's primary sanction was not the armed force it was supposed to have at its disposal but the volume of world opinion which it could mobilise on its behalf. By use of that sanction the organisation had been able to cope reasonably well with the first challenge it had confronted: a great power had been persuaded not to use a position of strength to enforce concessions. But it had done so only at the cost of sharpening confrontation among the permanent members. It had evolved no effective procedure for promoting negotiation among the great powers on the question. This basic weakness in its way of handling cold-war issues was seriously to inhibit its capacity to cope with more deep-seated disputes of the same era.
Over Syria and Lebanon, too, though the balance of forces was quite different, a similar strategy was employed. By expressing confidence that a withdrawal would take place, the powers concerned were put on notice that they were under observation. And the fact that the resolution was vetoed did not significantly reduce its moral force. France and Britain were constrained to announce that they felt bound by its terms. So here too the UN could feel it had had some marginal influence. Probably France, like the Soviet Union, was anyway reconciled to withdrawing, but hoped to extract some quid pro quo for so doing. The interest taken by the Security Council in the affair inhibited her ability to extract such concessions. As in the other case, the UN's ultimate power was limited: nobody believed that it would give military help against France, least of all the French. But that France, like the Soviet Union, withdrew without having secured any concessions was at least partly because of the moral authority wielded by the new international organisation.
N ow that it was clear that the organisation was unlikely ever to have force at its disposal, it would clearly be able to secure law and order only by maximising intangible influence of this kind. Unfortunately, it would not often lead to such rapid results as here.
First Veto Exercise in United Nations
