UN is being hampered by Annan�s weak
leadership
When George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002 and
threatened the world body with �irrelevance� if it did not grant him a
license to invade Iraq, he achieved the opposite. Rather than becoming
irrelevant, the UN proved that it could be the most important venue for
resolving international conflicts. Very quickly, and at the direction of
the Security Council, Hans Blix assembled an expert team that restarted
weapons inspections throughout Iraq. In the opinion of almost the entire
world, inspections were making significant progress toward Iraqi
disarmament, even if progress on some issues was not as rapid as desired.
Nevertheless, the shortcomings of the inspection process were considered
infinitely preferable to the shortcomings of the other proposed method,
war.
In recent months, the UN Security Council took on a prominence
unprecedented since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. All of a sudden, the
arcane and formal proceedings of the council gathered worldwide
television audiences who followed each word and facial expression around
the table.
If the council could not stop the United States from defying it and
attacking Iraq, it at least prevented the US from gaining legitimacy and
greater support for an unjust war. The absence of a Security Council
endorsement means that the United States and the United Kingdom are
effectively alone in their Iraqi adventure. That the United States would
name as members of its �coalition,� such bastions of democracy and human
rights as Albania, Uzbekistan and Georgia, and be unable to declare
publicly the clandestine assistance of a small number of Arab governments
whose identities are well-known, only underscores its isolation. The UN,
therefore, proved that if it is not yet so, it can one day become a
counterweight to the unilateralism of any single member.
What undermines this is the weak and inconsistent leadership of UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The statement he issued following the start
of the war contains no forthright criticism of an action that seen by
most of the world as an unlawful attack, a violation of the UN Charter
and defiance of the Security Council.
Rather than call for an immediate ceasefire, as he should have forcefully
done, Annan, in his March 20 statement, merely said, �Today, despite the
best efforts of the international community and the United Nations, war
has come to Iraq for the third time in a quarter of a century.� It is as
if war were not the result of human decisions, but rather a bad spell of
weather.
Underlining this passive approach, in which Annan transformed himself
into a mere commentator, he said, �My thoughts today are with the Iraqi
people, who face yet another ordeal. I hope that all parties will observe
the requirements of international humanitarian law, and will do
everything in their power to shield the civilian population from the grim
consequences of war.�
The one sure way to do that would be an immediate halt to US bombing �
which the United States has stated it is doing primarily for political
and psychological purposes, rather than to achieve necessary military
objectives.
With such �diplomatic� phrasing, Annan avoided stating that, in fact, by
attacking Iraq the United States, the most powerful member of the United
Nations, had acted against international law and the expressed will of
the vast majority of the dozens of member states whose representatives
spoke in the extensive Security Council debates on Iraq.
Annan went on to add, �Perhaps if we had persevered a little longer, Iraq
could yet have been disarmed peacefully, or � if not � the world could
have taken action to solve this problem through a collective decision,
endowing it with greater legitimacy and therefore commanding wider
support than is now the case.�
Annan had previously stated his view that without explicit Security
Council endorsement, the legality of a US attack on Iraq would be
�seriously impaired.�
Either the US attack on Iraq is legal or it is not legal. Annan has
studiously avoided taking a position, resorting instead to formulas that
are utterly devoid of content, but whose principal effect is to spare him
Washington�s wrath.
Worse still, Annan pleads, �But let us not dwell on the divisions of the
past. Let us confront the realities of the present, however harsh, and
look for ways to forge stronger unity in the future.�
Does Annan seriously believe that the start of the US attack on Iraq
suddenly renders irrelevant the fundamental issues raised by most of the
world, and articulated most forcefully by Russia, France and Germany? The
question of US unilateralism is not a minor dispute that can simply be
swept under the carpet, but one with profound consequences for the future
of the globe. Annan may be ready accept the �harsh reality� of the
dangerous and unilateral new US approach to the world, but clearly,
courageous US diplomats and British government ministers who resigned on
principle, millions of Americans and others still demonstrating all over
the world, and most other governments, are not quite ready to give in so
easily.
A survey of Annan�s statements in recent years indicates that there is
scarcely a minor skirmish or a major conflict anywhere in the world, in
which he has not openly called for a cease-fire or deplored in the
strongest terms the resort to violence. By failing to do the same in the
case of Iraq, Annan seems, in effect, to be acquiescing to, if not openly
endorsing, the US attack on Iraq specifically, and the dangerous new
doctrine of preemptive war more generally. Whatever successes the
dedicated staff of the UN Secretariat and agencies may be achieving
around the world, it is in spite, rather than because of, the weak
leadership at the top.
Ali Abunimah is a Chicago-based Palestinian-Jordanian analyst
and media critic. He is the co-founder of the Electronic Intifada. He
writes a regular commentary for The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/25_03_03_d.htm
