"....ideas long promoted by transnational elites: the UN is flawed in its current form and needs to be transformed into a monolithic giant with governing powers given by the member-states to break the spell of inaction. Nation-states will gradually be stripped from their sovereignty as they are morphed into this larger system, answering only to a global central authority......"
Earlier Obama took a swipe at the United Nations and other international organizations as he left a three-day Group of 8 summit that he acknowledged "did not reach agreement on every issue."
While lauding progress on several fronts, including the agricultural aid, the president said groups like the G-8 and U.N. must be reinvigorated to reflect a changing world with multiple power centers.
"There is no doubt that we have to update and refresh and renew the international institutions that were set up in a different time and place," Obama said in his closing press conference.
Singling out the U.N., Obama said, "When it comes to big, tough problems, the United Nations General Assembly is not always working as effectively and rapidly as it needs to."
He mentioned the Rwandan genocide as an example.
One problem, Obama said, is that international organizations have become large and unwieldy.