The way it goes

From the New York Times:

The General Assembly vote ended three weeks of tense talks at which regional rivalries and national ambitions succeeded in scuttling attempts by a majority of nations to act in the broader United Nations interest. The continuing debate exposed in high profile the kind of indecisiveness that the document was supposed to address.

"There were governments that were not willing to make the concessions necessary," Mr. Annan said. "There were spoilers also in the group, let's be quite honest about that."

I wish more had been accomplished, but that's pretty much the way it goes in a collaborative organization. It reminds me of Winston Churchill's famous comment:

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.