Kofi Annan’s Reward for Rescuing U.S. From Its Own Ineptitude Is More U.S. Welshing on Its U.N. Debt

By Ian Williams

By going to Baghdad, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan saved the White House from its own foreign policy ineptitude—but one hopes that he is not so foolish as to expect gratitude for securing Iraqi cooperation with the U.N. inspection teams. The curmudgeonly expressions of U.S. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at their press conference made it look as if they thought he had run away with their ball. And the reactions of the Republicans seem to imply that they think that U.N.-bashing is a vote-winner—at least in the jockeying for position as presidential nominee.

Of course, it was not a ball Annan ran away with. He actually defused a ticking diplomatic and military time bomb that had every potential to blow up in the face of all concerned. American double standards have already made Saddam Hussain look like a victim. The invocation of the U.N. resolutions against Iraq, which contrasted with the stifling of those against Israel and the seeming carelessness about the effects of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, has guaranteed the Iraqi dictator a good press across the world.

The Iraqis have raised the “light at the end of the tunnel” issue with every negotiator and envoy who went to Baghdad. And yet the U.S. has consistently implied that, short of resignation or suicide (probably the same thing in Saddam Hussain’s case) the U.S. would veto lifting sanctions even if he fulfilled every jot and title of the U.N. resolutions. In effect U.S. “diplomacy” removed the carrot that could persuade Baghdad to cooperate, and only left the stick.

But the stick is big enough to cause stubborn resentment without necessarily impelling movement. The absence of any visible strategy on how to topple the Iraqi president, or how military action would in any way harm the regime, left an increasing feeling that those smart bombs were really aimed at public opinion here. Certainly it would have ruined any chance of cooperation with the inspectors, and made Saddam Hussain look like a hero.

Of course it did not help that U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson began his fruitless pilgrimage in search of foreign support for bombing Iraq just as Congress reneged on the already deeply flawed Helms-Biden deal on paying debts to the United Nations. “No representation without taxation,” as former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind once quipped.

A year ago, when Kofi Annan took office, we wrote in WRMEA that “Congress, Clinton and Albright share a tendency to make foreign policy based on the last lobbyist’s check, and to be surprised when the rest of the world questions this basis for making policy. The sheer unreasonableness of their expectations will soon lead to some form of conflict that not even the pacific Annan can finesse.”

American double standards have made Saddam Hussain look like a victim.

In fact, poor Kofi Annan had been reduced by congressional bill-bilking to being more of an office manager than a senior statesman. The U.S., and especially Madeleine Albright, showed forcibly to Boutros Boutros-Ghali that that was their preferred role for the U.N. secretary-general. Washington officials first tried to avert Annan’s mission, and then to constrain him so tightly that they thought that he could not succeed.

Annan stood firm on his rights and obligations. He did not go to the Security Council for a mandate, but for advice and political support, which he achieved with the help of the majority there. Maladroit American hostility to the mission enhanced the charm of surrender to Annan for the Iraqi regime. They could treat with Annan “because of the goodwill that he brought with him...In fact there was no crisis between Iraq and the U.N....the crisis was with the U.S.,” suggested Tariq Aziz, and he was at least half right.

Annan himself was more realistic. “You can do a lot with diplomacy backed u[ by firmness and force,” he told the Baghdad press conference. But while the U.S. administration, backed by Fritain, provided the force that Annan correctly suggests was responsible for his success, American diplomatic ineptitude has allowed Saddam Hussain to claim victory while capitulating to every American demand.

A Frosty Reaction

If Clinton had supported Annan’s endeavors, then he could have been gloating over Saddam Hussain’s surrender. There is, after all, strong evidence that the Iraqi regime has been developing inhumane and illegal weapons. Iraq certainly violated the terms of U.N. resolutions by refusing access to inspectors. But the rest of the world suspected that bombing raids would gain nothing except domestic political points in the U.S., while risking the end of all inspections in Iraq. The Annan agreement promised full access to the inspectors and still the initial reaction from Washington was frosty.

One is left with the impression that administration officials are almost as upset at the secretary-general taking an independent role as they are with Iraq getting off the hook. This was graphically illustrated when Albright invoked “our national interest,” as the key test for the acceptability of Annan’s agreement between the U.N. and Iraq.

Even Annan’s supporters were in haste to ratify his agreement at the Security Council, as if scared to leave the impression that the secretary-general had the power to act on his own authority. This power was first claimed in the 1950s, when Dag Hammarskjold went to Beijing to negotiate about prisoners of war from the Korean War, but it is not one with which the major powers have ever been happy.

But the resulting resolution seems to be all things to all Council members. It said that “any violation would have severest consequences for Iraq.” According to the U.S., that was a license to bomb whenever Washington felt that Baghdad had broken the rules. To almost all the other people voting for it, it meant that the Council had to decide. Similarly, reaffirming “its intention to act in accordance with the relevant provisions of Resolution 687 on the duration of prohibitions referred to in that resolution,” meant “light at the end of the tunnel,” to all the others, but not the U.S.

Annan’s declaration of independence at the U.N. may cost him dearly—or may embolden him further. Everywhere in the world outside the Beltway, he has been applauded for his statesmanlike coup. Despite Arab plaudits for his initiative, it remains to be seen whether he would boldly go where the administration would really get angry—and return to the Middle East to suggest that the Israelis, too, should abide by resolutions on Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

He has shown a somewhat disturbing ambivalence on this issue, as when he told the Islamic Summit in Tehran that both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict should abide by the Oslo agreements, when even Washington was hinting that Israel may be more at fault. He also moderated the U.N. report on Qana where the Israelis killed over a hundred Lebanese refugees in a U.N. compound.

In addition, in going to Baghdad he had the active support of Russia and France, which were impelled by national economic interests as much as by any overall concern for peace and security. Will any combination of major powers have as much incentive to support the oil-free Palestinians or Lebanese?

Indeed, Annan seems to have decided that he would like a second term as secretary-general, and he would have to be looking over his shoulder at the U.S., whose coup against his predecessor provided the vacancy he now occupies.

There is no doubt that Annan has enhanced the prestige and standing of the U.N. It remains to be seen to what use he will put it.

Ian Williams is a free-lance journalist based at the United Nations and the author of The U.N. for Beginners , available from the AET Book Club (see p. 133).

Both Link articles mentioned are available from Americans for Middle East Understanding. Room 245, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115-0241; telephone (212) 870-2053; e-mail AMEU@aol.com

The video "People and the Land" is available from the AET Book Club Catalog .