New Secretary-General, Security Council Members Not All in Lock-Step With U.S.

UNDER HEAVY PRESSURE from Washington and London, the U.N. Security Council has expressed its displeasure with Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons. The attempt to get any practical consequences, however, has been stalled in the face of reluctance from other members who may agree that the regimes should not have nukes, but are wary of giving the U.S. an excuse for another Iraqi-style debacle.

The comrades in Pyongyang certainly are not the most cosmopolitan types around, so one could almost forgive them for misreading signals. Israel, after all, has 200-plus nuclear war heads, and gets billions of dollars of free money and a proxy veto from the U.S. Pakistan also gets lots of support, despite the fact that its prime nuclear scientist has been disseminating bomb kits across the Muslim world. And when India explodes a bomb, Washington immediately rewards Delhi with an offer of civilian nuclear technology. So what conclusion is Kim Jong Il, let alone the Iranians, supposed to reach from this?

That, of course, has not stopped John Bolton, who does not believe the U.N. has any credibility, from rushing to the Security Council to get it to pass resolutions against atomic members of the Axis of Evil.

But Bolton should stick to his principles. Those who traditionally argue, as he does, that the United Nations should not put obstacles in the way of U.S. diplomacy are right, at least in the case of Korea and Iran. They really are not the U.N.'s business, since both regimes are trying to get the United States to talk to them, meaning the U.N., six-party talks and similar devices are simply fig leaves to cover up Washington's refusal to engage in diplomacy. The Bush administration simply cannot bring itself to say publicly that it has no intention of making war on Iran and North Korea.

The solution is simple: fly Oliver North to Tehran and Pyongyang. The former Iran-Contra figure has extensive experience of negotiating with official pariah states-and, just like last time, the Israelis would probably fly him in with assorted militaristic trade goods.

"Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," George W. Bush told the General Assembly in September. "Despite what the regime tells you, we have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program. We're working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis," he claimed.

Bush failed to explain, however, why the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had reprimanded his administration the previous week for grossly exaggerating the very slender evidence of an actual weapons program. (After the speech, Bush was spared close confrontation with reality in the form of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the latter skipped the luncheon for heads of state, since wine was being served. Reformed imbiber Bush suffered in silence.)

"Some have argued that the democratic changes we're seeing in the Middle East are destabilizing the region," Bush acknowledged to the General Assembly. Invoking the delegates of the elected governments of Lebanon and Afghanistan, he proceeded, "This argument rests on a false assumption, that the Middle East was stable to begin with."

Perhaps one cannot expect too much from a president who told the U.N. how much he felt the suffering of Lebanese "caught in the cross fire"-puzzling delegates as much as it would the Lebanese. Not only was it inaccurate to describe the Israeli blitz, conducted with American weapons, as "cross fire," but it gave rich ammunition for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to say what was on everyone else's mind about the conflict.

In his preceeding address to the General Assembly, however, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had a firmer grip on the truth than did the U.S. president. "As long as the Security Council is unable to end this [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, and the now nearly 40-year-old occupation, by bringing both sides to accept and implement its resolutions, so long will our impartiality be questioned," Annan said. "So long will our best efforts to resolve other conflicts be resisted, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Even the necessary and legitimate struggle around the world against terrorism," he added, "is used as a pretext to abridge or abrogate fundamental human rights, thereby ceding moral ground to the terrorists and helping them find new recruits."

To be fair, Annan has been saying this and similar things for 10 years and U.S. administrations have ignored him.

A Welcome Diversion

Faced with such contradictions, delegates almost welcomed the Security Council elections, even though these can get complicated-which is why, perhaps, delegates often try to simplify them by nominating only as many candidates as there are open positions.

The proxy Sumo wrestling match between Venezuela and Guatemala for the Security Council's Latin American seat made the 2000 Florida recounts seem like a consensual vote of acclamation. By the third week in October, 40 ballots had failed to produce any results. Comfortably elected on the first ballot, South Africa, Italy, Belgium and Indonesia are not pushovers for U.S. (and thus Israeli) policy, but President Chavez's speech comparing Bush to the devil, while it excited much applause from many delegates, gave many others the excuse they wanted not to support Chavez. It is of course unfair that Vice President Dick Cheney can compare the re-elected Chavez to Hitler with no recriminations, but as a former American president noted, "Who said life is fair?"

For most people, the millenarian visions of both Chavez and Bolton are a distraction from the pressing issues that face the U.N. and the world. U.N. members do not want to expel the U.S. from the United Nations, nor mount a crusade (let alone a jihad) against the world's only superpower. They want to engage the U.S. in a constructive way-even if this often appears as unrequited love.

Although the open Security Council seat represents the Latin American and Caribbean region, and although Venezuela had a clear majority there, it is the entire General Assembly which votes for contested seats. Moreover, it takes a two-thirds majority to win, so although Guatemala, Washington's favored candidate, has won every ballot except one, which was a tie, the repeated attritional voting has not resulted in victory. Chavez's support for Lebanon and the Palestinians won Venezuela some support among Islamic states-but his support for Iran may have cost him some of those as well.

The rules allow alternating triplets of ballots in which any country can declare candidacy in an attempt to break the deadlock. But since this is a grudge vote of attrition between the U.S. and its opponents the repeated voting has been unmatched since the three-month marathon in 1979 between Cuba and Colombia. To maintain that, however, took the discipline of the Cold War. According to the whispers, the Dominican Republic is waiting to climb over the bodies of the contending parties when the delegates get too tired to carry on. The U.S. will support that-in fact it will support almost anyone but Chavez-but will do so discreetly, to avoid the reaction that overt Washington sponsorship brings.

At home, the Bush administration would certainly declare a Venezuelan defeat to be another scalp on John Bolton's belt, and use it to reopen the issue of his confirmation, or to justify an end-run around an overly strict interpretation of the law on recess appointments.

Annan's Successor

The business of selecting South Korea's Ban Ki-moon as the world's secular pope was rushed through with almost unseemly brusqueness so that the Security Council could discuss Kim Jong Il's nuclear diversion. Knowing the North Koreans' penchant for symbolism-including missile tests to compete with Macy's 4th of July fireworks-one cannot help but suspect that Pyongyang was trying to ruin Ban's party.

While the new secretary-general's election campaign was conducted much more openly than any previous one, the election itself was as murky as ever, with the Security Council conducting straw polls indicating which candidates were best favored. Ban Ki-moon consistently led those, and the final one showed just one abstention against him. It also showed that all the other candidates had at least one permanent member opposed to them, so a week later the Council made it official and unanimously voted to present Ban's nomination to the General Assembly-which, elected him equally unanimously, despite all the earlier protests about the Council-dominated proceedings.

Interesting, and indeed perplexing, was the low vote of the "Arab" Asian candidate, Prince Zeid of Jordan. He seems to have had several strikes against him, many of which only make sense in the context of the U.N. world. Many Asians do not seem to have accepted him as a real Asian, in the same way many sub-Saharan Africans did not accept Boutros Boutros Ghali as a "real" African. But then Ban was also articulate, principled and a major player in the International Criminal Court-all of which factors could be negative as well!

While John Bolton expressed complete satisfaction with Ban's appointment, it is reassuring to note that the U.S. envoy's soul mates in the conservative Heritage Foundation had expressed doubts about Ban's suitability, citing Seoul's reluctance "to confront North Korea on human rights or its belligerence and nuclear ambitions," and alleging that "Ban has said little about U.N. reform, and there are questions about his commitment to it. The current government in South Korea campaigned in 2004 with strong anti-United States rhetoric."

There is little reason to suppose, then, that Ban Ki-moon will be a pliable tool of U.S., let alone Israeli, policy.

[Sidebar]

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon (l) with outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at U.N. Headquarters Oct. 13, after the General Assembly confirmed Ban's nomination as the U.N.'s next secretary-general (AFP photo/Stan Honda).

[Author Affiliation]

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations.

New Secretary-General, Security Council Members Not All in Lock-Step With U.S.

UNDER HEAVY PRESSURE from Washington and London, the U.N. Security Council has expressed its displeasure with Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons. The attempt to get any practical consequences, however, has been stalled in the face of reluctance from other members who may agree that the regimes should not have nukes, but are wary of giving the U.S. an excuse for another Iraqi-style debacle.

The comrades in Pyongyang certainly are not the most cosmopolitan types around, so one could almost forgive them for misreading signals. Israel, after all, has 200-plus nuclear war heads, and gets billions of dollars of free money and a proxy veto from the U.S. Pakistan also gets lots of support, despite the fact that its prime nuclear scientist has been disseminating bomb kits across the Muslim world. And when India explodes a bomb, Washington immediately rewards Delhi with an offer of civilian nuclear technology. So what conclusion is Kim Jong Il, let alone the Iranians, supposed to reach from this?

That, of course, has not stopped John Bolton, who does not believe the U.N. has any credibility, from rushing to the Security Council to get it to pass resolutions against atomic members of the Axis of Evil.

But Bolton should stick to his principles. Those who traditionally argue, as he does, that the United Nations should not put obstacles in the way of U.S. diplomacy are right, at least in the case of Korea and Iran. They really are not the U.N.'s business, since both regimes are trying to get the United States to talk to them, meaning the U.N., six-party talks and similar devices are simply fig leaves to cover up Washington's refusal to engage in diplomacy. The Bush administration simply cannot bring itself to say publicly that it has no intention of making war on Iran and North Korea.

The solution is simple: fly Oliver North to Tehran and Pyongyang. The former Iran-Contra figure has extensive experience of negotiating with official pariah states-and, just like last time, the Israelis would probably fly him in with assorted militaristic trade goods.

"Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," George W. Bush told the General Assembly in September. "Despite what the regime tells you, we have no objection to Iran's pursuit of a truly peaceful nuclear power program. We're working toward a diplomatic solution to this crisis," he claimed.

Bush failed to explain, however, why the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had reprimanded his administration the previous week for grossly exaggerating the very slender evidence of an actual weapons program. (After the speech, Bush was spared close confrontation with reality in the form of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the latter skipped the luncheon for heads of state, since wine was being served. Reformed imbiber Bush suffered in silence.)

"Some have argued that the democratic changes we're seeing in the Middle East are destabilizing the region," Bush acknowledged to the General Assembly. Invoking the delegates of the elected governments of Lebanon and Afghanistan, he proceeded, "This argument rests on a false assumption, that the Middle East was stable to begin with."

Perhaps one cannot expect too much from a president who told the U.N. how much he felt the suffering of Lebanese "caught in the cross fire"-puzzling delegates as much as it would the Lebanese. Not only was it inaccurate to describe the Israeli blitz, conducted with American weapons, as "cross fire," but it gave rich ammunition for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to say what was on everyone else's mind about the conflict.

In his preceeding address to the General Assembly, however, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had a firmer grip on the truth than did the U.S. president. "As long as the Security Council is unable to end this [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, and the now nearly 40-year-old occupation, by bringing both sides to accept and implement its resolutions, so long will our impartiality be questioned," Annan said. "So long will our best efforts to resolve other conflicts be resisted, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Even the necessary and legitimate struggle around the world against terrorism," he added, "is used as a pretext to abridge or abrogate fundamental human rights, thereby ceding moral ground to the terrorists and helping them find new recruits."

To be fair, Annan has been saying this and similar things for 10 years and U.S. administrations have ignored him.

A Welcome Diversion

Faced with such contradictions, delegates almost welcomed the Security Council elections, even though these can get complicated-which is why, perhaps, delegates often try to simplify them by nominating only as many candidates as there are open positions.

The proxy Sumo wrestling match between Venezuela and Guatemala for the Security Council's Latin American seat made the 2000 Florida recounts seem like a consensual vote of acclamation. By the third week in October, 40 ballots had failed to produce any results. Comfortably elected on the first ballot, South Africa, Italy, Belgium and Indonesia are not pushovers for U.S. (and thus Israeli) policy, but President Chavez's speech comparing Bush to the devil, while it excited much applause from many delegates, gave many others the excuse they wanted not to support Chavez. It is of course unfair that Vice President Dick Cheney can compare the re-elected Chavez to Hitler with no recriminations, but as a former American president noted, "Who said life is fair?"

For most people, the millenarian visions of both Chavez and Bolton are a distraction from the pressing issues that face the U.N. and the world. U.N. members do not want to expel the U.S. from the United Nations, nor mount a crusade (let alone a jihad) against the world's only superpower. They want to engage the U.S. in a constructive way-even if this often appears as unrequited love.

Although the open Security Council seat represents the Latin American and Caribbean region, and although Venezuela had a clear majority there, it is the entire General Assembly which votes for contested seats. Moreover, it takes a two-thirds majority to win, so although Guatemala, Washington's favored candidate, has won every ballot except one, which was a tie, the repeated attritional voting has not resulted in victory. Chavez's support for Lebanon and the Palestinians won Venezuela some support among Islamic states-but his support for Iran may have cost him some of those as well.

The rules allow alternating triplets of ballots in which any country can declare candidacy in an attempt to break the deadlock. But since this is a grudge vote of attrition between the U.S. and its opponents the repeated voting has been unmatched since the three-month marathon in 1979 between Cuba and Colombia. To maintain that, however, took the discipline of the Cold War. According to the whispers, the Dominican Republic is waiting to climb over the bodies of the contending parties when the delegates get too tired to carry on. The U.S. will support that-in fact it will support almost anyone but Chavez-but will do so discreetly, to avoid the reaction that overt Washington sponsorship brings.

At home, the Bush administration would certainly declare a Venezuelan defeat to be another scalp on John Bolton's belt, and use it to reopen the issue of his confirmation, or to justify an end-run around an overly strict interpretation of the law on recess appointments.

Annan's Successor

The business of selecting South Korea's Ban Ki-moon as the world's secular pope was rushed through with almost unseemly brusqueness so that the Security Council could discuss Kim Jong Il's nuclear diversion. Knowing the North Koreans' penchant for symbolism-including missile tests to compete with Macy's 4th of July fireworks-one cannot help but suspect that Pyongyang was trying to ruin Ban's party.

While the new secretary-general's election campaign was conducted much more openly than any previous one, the election itself was as murky as ever, with the Security Council conducting straw polls indicating which candidates were best favored. Ban Ki-moon consistently led those, and the final one showed just one abstention against him. It also showed that all the other candidates had at least one permanent member opposed to them, so a week later the Council made it official and unanimously voted to present Ban's nomination to the General Assembly-which, elected him equally unanimously, despite all the earlier protests about the Council-dominated proceedings.

Interesting, and indeed perplexing, was the low vote of the "Arab" Asian candidate, Prince Zeid of Jordan. He seems to have had several strikes against him, many of which only make sense in the context of the U.N. world. Many Asians do not seem to have accepted him as a real Asian, in the same way many sub-Saharan Africans did not accept Boutros Boutros Ghali as a "real" African. But then Ban was also articulate, principled and a major player in the International Criminal Court-all of which factors could be negative as well!

While John Bolton expressed complete satisfaction with Ban's appointment, it is reassuring to note that the U.S. envoy's soul mates in the conservative Heritage Foundation had expressed doubts about Ban's suitability, citing Seoul's reluctance "to confront North Korea on human rights or its belligerence and nuclear ambitions," and alleging that "Ban has said little about U.N. reform, and there are questions about his commitment to it. The current government in South Korea campaigned in 2004 with strong anti-United States rhetoric."

There is little reason to suppose, then, that Ban Ki-moon will be a pliable tool of U.S., let alone Israeli, policy.

[Sidebar]

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon (l) with outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at U.N. Headquarters Oct. 13, after the General Assembly confirmed Ban's nomination as the U.N.'s next secretary-general (AFP photo/Stan Honda).

[Author Affiliation]

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations.