The President, Mrs McAleese, has indirectly warned against any country taking action without the full backing of the United Nations.
In what may be interpreted as a message to the US in the build-up to possible war with Iraq, Mrs McAleese said on the first day of a State visit to Malaysia that any "might is right" approach should be resisted with vigour. She said in conflict situations "the interests of quiet majorities are commonly trampled on by those willing to resort to violence.
"It seems to me that it is part of the mission of countries like ours to help resist the supposed realpolitik of 'might is right' and seek with all the vigour, wisdom and intelligence at our command to advance the indispensable tenets of international co-operation and the rule of law."
Diplomatic sources insisted last night that the President was not sending a coded warning to the US, nor was she referring to any one country. She was reiterating Ireland's view of the paramountcy of the UN, which is a kernel of Ireland's foreign policy.
In a keynote address to the prestigious Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in Kuala Lumber, the President said countries such as Ireland had a role to play in key global issues.
"It behoves nations like ours to do all in our power to ensure that, despite all the difficulties we encounter, things do not fall apart in the international arena; that the centre ground represented by the United Nations with its noble, achievable millennium goals, holds firm and extends its remit.
"In the face of growing worries about unilateralism and an all-too- prevalent scepticism about the prospects for international understanding, nations like ours have a greater need than ever before to address today's key global issues with intelligence and determination." The President said there are those who are quick to deride the United Nations and to highlight its failings.
"But we in Ireland insist on its enduring centrality in world affairs. We see the UN Security Council as having the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
"As a result we derive particular satisfaction from the role we have been able to play, at a tense time in international relations, during our current term as members of the Security Council." She said peacekeeping has always been at the heart of Ireland's contribution to the United Nations and since 1955 we have taken part in 13 separate peace-keeping missions in places as far afield as the Congo, Cambodia and Yugoslavia.
The President pointed out that the UN was not a "free-floating superhuman institutiton", but the sum of its parts.
"Each country has an obligation to help enhance the UN's capacities. Smaller nations like ours have an abiding interest in avoiding recourse to force in international relations. We need to specialise in conflict prevention and crisis management so as to uphold all that is best in the human condition and help contain its more negative elements." Mrs McAleese referred to the conflict in the Middle East and the "tragic plight of the Palestinian people". She also spoke of the threat of terrorism in the world.
Violence of the kind we saw on September 11th last year posed the greatest possible threat to the spread of better understanding between peoples, she added.
"The fear bred by terrorist activity is inimical to a more dispassionate understanding of the many things that unite us and of the relatively insignificant ways in which we differ.
"Acts of violence against innocent civilians generate emotional responses which undermine reasoned argument. We ought to stop thinking of countries in terms of their religious identities and judge their performance by a universal yardstick."
She urged meeting the challenge of international understanding by starting to foster tolerance in our own societies and said dialogue and relentless persuasion can become the tools of the peace-makers.
President McAleese also paid a visit yesterday to the Petronas Twin Towers, the tallest building in the world. The Towers in Kuala Lumpur were built as a testimony to Malaysia's booming economic power and are taller than were the New York Twin Towers.
The film Entrapment, starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery, was set in the Towers.
Mrs McAleese said the Towers were a powerful symbol of the country's 21st-century ambitions. She presented prizes to students who participated in the Dublin-Kuala Lumber Future Cities project aimed at forging links between young people in both countries.