UN General Assembly
2012

and idealistic optimism that were much in evidence during the early days of the so-called Arab Spring have been replaced by a cynical fatalism and rampant opportunism in many important quarters. In other continents, some nations flirt with border wars, while others grapple with insidious and barbaric terrorism. In the midst of the global upheaval, we have witnessed the aggressive re-emergence of those that would seek to reshape the world in their own image and to their own purposes. Would-be interventionists, unilateralists and hegemons, both new and old, have rushed to fill and exploit political vacuums, to settle ancient grudges and to strengthen their grip on global or regional power. It is a pattern that predates colonialism and the Cold War and one that once again brings into focus many of the United Nations founding principles. Those principles cannot be ignored, reinterpreted or sacrificed on the altar of poll-driven political expediency and electoral ambition. We have bound ourselves together in the solemn goal of promoting peace, not fostering wars; of self-determination, not unilateral intervention;