Nothing ventured, nothing gained http://www.theherald.co.uk/images/space.gifIAN BELL December 23 2006 http://www.theherald.co.uk/images/space.gif <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing%20ventured%2C%20nothing%20gained%27> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing%20ventured%2C%20nothing%20gained%27> email author <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Nothing%20ventured%2C%20nothing%20gained%27> http://www.theherald.co.uk/images/space.gif A decade into the job, with retirement on New Year's Eve in sight, Kofi Annan found his voice. The departing secretary-general of the United Nations declared a couple of weeks ago that the United States had embarked on the Iraq war without international support, and that it had abandoned its own ideals in the process. This was little enough, and it was far too late. All the profiles speak of Annan's fundamental decency. They attest that his compassion for Iraq is as real as his concern for Darfur. He cared deeply about the victims of the Asian tsunami, they say, just as he cared about Rwanda and Bosnia. The media biographies add that this career civil servant believes passionately in the UN. If there have been failures, internally and externally, Annan's supporters remind you that no single person can ever hold together 192 squabbling, self-interested states. Possibly so. But if so, the prospects for international co-operation, for international law and for the sundry high ideals of the UN are grim. If you support the idea of the organisation even in the vaguest sense – thinking about the alternatives usually does the trick – you have to ask yourself if decent careerists in the Annan mould are part of the solution, or are the problem itself. He achieved eminence, after all, thanks to a simple perception: the big powers, and the US in particular, believed he would not talk out of turn. They were right about that. Annan was elevated because America had had enough of the opinionated Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and would not countenance a second term. Each of those 192 states had a voice, but one spoke loudest. The White House, Democrat and Republican, believed it knew its man. He did not often, or noticeably, disappoint. This did not matter much when Bill Clinton, always the internationalist, was President. America paid its multi-million-dollar arrears to UN coffers and Annan began the job of stripping away a layer of the organisation's bewildering bureaucracy. The latter even managed a moment of triumph by helping to persuade Clinton that the bombing of the Serbs was the only answer to genocide. He has a Nobel Peace Prize to show for it. The administration of George W Bush was a different matter. It treated the UN with contempt from the start, as an article of faith. No talking shop was to be allowed to hinder the exercise of American sovereignty. No collection of minor states, tinpot dictators and regional rivals was to be allowed the delusion of influence over US power. Bush and the neo-cons disliked the very idea of the UN. They mocked, they bullied and they exposed a fundamental contradiction. In warm and fuzzy theory, member states are supposed to be bound by UN resolutions. Bush subscribed to the notion cheerfully when the defaulter was Saddam Hussein, but not when the party binning the latest stern reproof was Israel, some other ally-of-the-hour or the US itself. There was nothing new in such hypocrisy. None of the big powers can boast a spotless record. But Bush, with a script for quick war ready to roll, made it policy. The pressure was on Annan and the secretary-general wilted. He carried the genetic flaw of institutional man. Whatever happened, the only point was to hold the institution together. America, Britain and the coalition of the dragooned went to war against Iraq in March of 2003. Annan waited until 2004 to whisper the truth that the entire affair was illegal. American critics had kept him busy, after all, with allegations over the oil-for-food scandal, the scam that allowed Saddam's corruption to infect the UN itself. No wrongdoing on Annan's part was ever proven, though his son, Kojo, had some explaining to do. Nevertheless, the exposure of an authentic crime served a dishonest purpose: it helped the Bushites to convince America that the UN was a gravy train run by puffed-up failures incapable of resolving any and all international crises. Annan made dignified speeches. He tended to urge, not to demand. Even with his Nobel, he summoned no moral authority, perhaps because, in a previous career, he had been involved directly in the UN's failures to halt the slaughters in Rwanda. Quiet lobbying was his forte and his voice was never raised. He understood what was wrong with the Iraq war, and why it was wrong. But the "unity" of the UN was paramount. Annan demonstrated, in fact, that a civil servant can be complicit in a catastrophe he happens to oppose.
In his last month in office, he has begun, finally, to speak out, as though desperate to correct the record. Now he tells us, in a BBC interview, that he warned the US against embarking on a war without the consent of the Security Council and the UN charter. His excuse is that Bush had already prepared his invasion, and that protests around the world, far less the word of a mere secretary-general, did nothing to dissuade the White House. Here you begin to wonder about the well-meaning man of compromise. Annan has knocked around the diplomatic circuit for a very long time. What did he really know about the planning for war? If he knew nothing else, he knew that Tony Blair's government was desperate for UN approval – it was thanks to the Prime Minister's pleadings that Bush even bothered to address the general assembly – and that America wanted Britain's support. Annan could have thrown a large spanner in the works simply by stating what he knew in early 2003: the war had no legal justification. He did no such thing. There are worse criminals. Annan revealed in his valedictory speech earlier this month that 50 years of UN data show America using its aid budget to influence – that is, to buy – the votes of non-permanent Security Council members. When they take their seats "aid" increases, on average, by 59%. Reported as "angry", all of a sudden, Annan has also accused the US of committing human rights abuses in the name of the war on terror, and noted that many Iraqis believe they were better off under Saddam. If any of this is a PR problem for Bush, the problem is solved on New Year's Eve. It perhaps seems harsh to pick on one man whose heart, if not his head, was in the right place. There remains the old saw of evil prospering when good men do nothing. Annan had little personally to lose by opposing the war. The UN itself might even have retained its status and esteem. The departing secretary-general could even have said, publicly, that the organisation will only be free from superpower abuse when the Security Council is reformed, enlarged and better represents all the peoples of the world. Too late. Annan will be replaced by Ban Ki-moon, Foreign Minister of South Korea, a country little noted for opposing the US, and a country steeling itself for the next proxy war with nuclear North Korea. Annan leaves behind a decade of missed opportunities and an organisation tottering beneath the weight of its own pretensions. As I suggested earlier, think only of the alternatives. Bush's Iraq war has showed us one <http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/77344-print.shtml> http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/77344-print.shtml
image001.png
Description: PNG image
image002.png
Description: PNG image
<<attachment: image003.jpg>>
image004.png
Description: PNG image
