WASHINGTON - It was once said - by someone who held the post - that the US
vice-presidency wasn't worth a "pitcher of warm spit". Since Dick Cheney has
occupied the post, the spittle has become more potently venomous and the office
consequently more important and noticeable.
Similarly, the secretary-generalship of the United Nations is a very malleable
office. The contrast with a predecessor's personality can make the successor's
style more or less noticeable. Ban Ki-moon's tenure so far has been on the
low-decibel end of the
scale, even compared with Kofi Annan, who always spoke softly, realizing that
there was no big stick at hand.
Technically, the secretary general is the UN's office manager, and on the
official-protocol totem pole only equates to a foreign minister. In fact, the
frequently overlookable president of the General Assembly officially outranks
him. (Until now, only men have served as UN secretaries general.)
However, like his predecessors, Ban can phone heads of state, confident that
they will answer his calls. His real powers derive from his ability to put
questions on the agenda - which can mean putting the great powers on the spot
by raising issues that they would rather see buried. That's an integral part of
his real power - it's the practical leverage by which he can symbolize the UN
Charter and the world community for the peoples of the world.
It's a power that recent incumbents have underused rather than abused. One of
the reasons for this is that the role of the world's conscience contradicts the
other role that has accreted to the office, which is to be the global
arch-envoy. It's difficult to remain the public keeper of the global conscience
when shaking the bloodstained hands of the statesmen of the world is an
essential part of your job description. And it's difficult to keep shaking the
hands of people you may name and shame.
First six months
So where does Ban Ki-moon fit into the pattern after six months in office?
One suspects that his neophyte Korean-dominated team doesn't really realize
that there is a pattern. In some ways, his tenure is reminiscent of the initial
intellectual arrogance of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who ran the show peremptorily
and autocratically until experience taught him different. In Ban's case, it's
more oligarchic than autocratic. His team of Korean advisers is collectively
running the show, but these advisers really do think they have little to learn
from the existing office-holders, many of whom they have cleared out.
Indeed, so thoroughgoing has been their exclusion of most of Annan's holdovers
that one can only presume they believed the John Bolton/Fox TV image of the
Annan administration as hopelessly anti-American and incorrigibly corrupt.
That lack of institutional memory leads to a reinvention of the wheel. The
fractious ending of their terms of office obscured the fact that many
non-aligned delegations regarded both Boutros-Ghali and Annan as pro-American
to the point of being tools of Washington. Ban has, naturally, declared that
US-UN relations are to be a major priority, but his Korean backup staff seem to
think they are being innovative with this. In reality, they are marching
briskly into the same prejudiced swamp as their predecessors.
Annan and the United States
Indeed, Annan, a US nominee, went as far as possible in constructive engagement
of Washington and, realizing its importance on Capitol Hill, to bring in Israel
and US pro-Israeli organizations into the United Nations.
However, Annan realized that there was considerable dissonance between what
American politicians wanted and what the UN Charter and international law
mandates. He didn't ostentatiously flaunt disagreements, but when he was pushed
there were lines he would not cross. In the end, he had to admit that the
invasion of Iraq was illegal - but no one could accuse him of being
ostentatious in his delivery of the message.
Similarly, even as he worked to get Israel fully participating in the UN and
accepting a role for the UN in the Middle East, he occasionally reminded the
world that there were relevant and important resolutions to consider.
Unlike their predecessors, Ban's team seems unaware that maintaining some
distance from Washington - especially when it is scoffing at the UN Charter and
international law - is essential to keep the rest of the membership happy.
That's nowhere more apparent than on Middle East issues, where in his leaked
confidential report on his resignation as the UN representative for the peace
process, Alvaro de Soto revealed an almost complete capitulation to the US and
Israeli positions.
De Soto complained of the "unprecedented access" Israel had to the Secretary
General's Office, which insiders confirm, and which goes as far as helping
choose officials as well as determining positions on the Palestine conflict.
Ban and the Middle East
Some of this results from the historical experience of Ban and the South
Koreans, who after all are more likely to see the United States as guardian
angel than predatory superpower. In fact, UN officials report that Ban sees
Israel as South Korea and the Palestinians as North Korea, with the United
States backing the good guys.
That misconception is reinforced because South Korea simply has not had a dog
in the Middle East fight, which has been an almost entirely peripheral issue
for Seoul. Ban and his team simply don't appreciate the significance of the
issue for the UN, for international law, and for the diplomacy of most of the
rest of the world.
Ironically, sources inside the UN suggest that the undersecretary general for
political affairs, former US diplomat B Lynn Pascoe, has been more objective
over the Middle East than some of the Europeans that Ban's team appointed and
is taking his responsibilities as an independent international civil servant
more seriously than many expected when Ban announced the appointment of an
American.
However, by aligning himself with the United States and Israel, Ban is making
it difficult for Pascoe to woo and work with the non-aligned and Muslim
majority in the General Assembly. Their defensiveness against Washington and
its allies is being reflected in voting in, for example, the Human Rights
Council.
No trained poodle
Ban is a person of principles. If he panders to the United States and Israel,
it's because he has chosen to, not because he is a trained poodle. He has
publicly supported a global moratorium on the death penalty, and supported the
International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect, which certainly
are not playing to the Texas gallery in Washington.
He has shown signs of a deep and abiding interest in Africa, and as we go to
press, his persistence in nagging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir -
admittedly backed by increasing Western exasperation and Chinese embarrassment
- may have secured a UN/African Union force with teeth in Darfur. If he
succeeds, it will be because he has refused to grandstand on the issue but
chosen rather just to work away on Bashir without fanfare.
It's not impossible that, faced with the continued arrogance of Washington and
Israel, Ban Ki-moon will soon realize that there are limits to cooperation if
he, his office and the UN are to maintain any integrity. If he sticks to UN
decisions, then he will soon discover that the race in Washington is not always
to the nice. It will be his call.
One issue could be the continuing refusal of Congress to release the funds the
legislators promised to pay for the US share of UN peacekeeping, and of the
White House to expend any political capital on the issue, even as the United
States mandates more and more peacekeeping operations.
The other issue is, of course, the Middle East, in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria
and Israel, Iraq and Iran.
Ban will discover, in de Soto's words, how much of a "heavy burden" he has:
that much of the world will judge his independence, and hence his efficacy, on
the mark he leaves in the Fertile Crescent.
Ian Williams contributes frequently to Foreign Policy In Focus on UN and
international affairs. More of his work is available on
DeadlinePundit.blogspot.com.
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