As with Darfur and Burma, the depredations of Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe have become a target of the world's moral outrage. Also like those two countries, the chances of anyone doing something about Zimbabwe are falling into the diplomatic abyss that is the United Nations.

The Bush Administration has been prodding the Security Council to impose an arms embargo and pass financial and travel sanctions that would pressure the Mugabe regime to sponsor honest elections and stop killing democratic opponents. The U.S. persuaded Burkina Faso, currently an African representative on the Council, to sign on.

But at the moment of truth on Friday, Russia and China vetoed the sanctions on grounds that they amounted to interference in Zimbabwe's internal affairs. Libya and Vietnam joined Russia and China, no doubt as fellow dictatorships that don't want outside attention on their domestic practices. And in a display of bizarre solidarity with Mr. Mugabe, South Africa also voted against the sanctions. (South Africa has long ago forfeited whatever moral authority it had on world affairs from the Nelson Mandela era.)

As in Darfur and Burma, the pattern is the same: The world's media report on a marauding regime terrorizing its neighbors or its own people. The world's foreign policy elite express their dismay, with liberal internationalists and European nations urging President Bush to "show some leadership" and "do something" through the U.N. The Bush Administration does precisely that. Yet in the event, China and Russia veto and nothing happens.

In essence, the U.N. has become a dictator protection racket...