Rave New World?

Ian Williams: Letter From America

Written By: Ian Williams

Published:Tribune  December 17, 2016

When he takes office on New Year’s Day, the new United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres will pick up the most poisoned of chalices – Syria. Last week, following successive Russian vetoes in the UN Security Council, by a large majority, the United Nations General Assembly supported a Canadian resolution condemning the “extensive and persistent violations of international humanitarian and international human rights laws” in Syria. It called for prosecutions of those responsible. Showing that distaste for mass murder by tyrannical regimes is not just a “Western Imperialist” concept, 123 countries voted for the resolution with only 13 opposing. But the US seems to cope with being outvoted regularly in the Assembly; Putin probably thinks he can also.

The successive Russian vetoes have included one preventing the International Criminal Court from investigating potential crimes committed by all parties in the conflict, which suggests that Putin knows where the burden of guilt is mostly weighted. It is interesting to see the arguments about the sacred nature of state sovereignty from the government that annexed the Crimea and detached large portions of Georgia, on behalf of the regime that occupied Lebanon for many years and almost certainly arranged the assassination of its Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The situation has many of the features of the Balkan Wars, but has caused even more casualties and suffering than they did. After Srebrenica and Rwanda, the UN said “never again” all over again. But now, just as the ruthlessly amoral Slobodan Milosevic found useful idiots to present him as an anti-imperialist hero, Bashir Al-Assad has a chorus of support among people who should know better. The Baathists in Syria, now hailed as being the front line of defence against imperialism and terrorism, were traditionally supporters of various ruthless terrorist factions, despite joining the US in Desert Storm against Iraq. Syria also had some of the most adept torturers in the world – which is why the US sub-contracted with the regime to abuse prisoners on its behalf.

Evil is globalized. The Russians in Chechnya showed how well they had learnt from the US to destroy towns and villages to save them, and Putin and the Assad regime apply the same tactics in Aleppo. The kind of massive human suffering in Syria is exactly what Kofi Annan envisaged when he persuaded the world summit of 2005 to adopt his new doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect”.

But Moscow has no monopoly on inconsistency or hypocrisy. Among those fulminating at the UN against Al-Assad’s crimes was Saudi Arabia, whose assaults on Yemen include targeting civilians and hospitals with the material and moral support of Britain and the USA. Even Trudeau’s Canada, which moved the General Assembly resolution, is now one of the tiny band of countries that votes with the US over Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Kofi Annan tried, but resigned as special representative for Syria when it became clear that none of the major powers were prepared to take whatever measures were necessary. Russia and Iran directly supported the regime while the West was unable or unwilling to keep out the Gulf States who armed and financed the more mediaeval elements of the opposition. Nor could Washington control Erdogan’s Turkey, which offered varying degrees of support to Islamists while pursuing its feud with the Kurds whenever it could.

While Ban had a fair idea of what Washington would or would not deliver in support for the UN, Guterres now has to cope with a US government whose foreign policy is based on random tweets and eccentric appointments. The likely secretary of state is an oil magnate whose company has fought even the concept of global warming – but who might be even warmer to the Saudis and indeed to Putin. Trump’s nominee for number 2 at State is rumoured to be John Bolton, the palaeocon who has made dismantling the UN his life’s work, and the UN Ambassador designate is a Tea Party supporter whose major foreign policy qualification seems to be that she had Indian parents.

While many people understandably have mixed feelings about the US role in the world, a sudden UNexit is a recipe for chaos. If any grownups do get a hand on the foreign policy tiller, they might appreciate that Washington needs the UN as much as, if not more, as the UN needs the USA. Apart from creating a desert and calling it peace, as the current Russian plan seems to be, Guterres has his work cut out and not just in Syria. He is eminently well qualified for the position and could revive an organization about which even many of its best supporters feel the magic is gone! However, while it would be good if he could count on predictable US input, the mental hiatus in Washington might well give him opportunities to make changes in the UN before the Trump administration can even get around to leaning on him.

The Other 2016 Election

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2016, pp. 50-51

United Nations Report

The Other 2016 Election: for Next U.N. Secretary-General

By Ian Williams

EVEN WITH ALL the media attention swallowed by the Trump/Clinton battle, there is amazingly little attention given to the selection of a new secretary-general to replace the retiring Ban Ki-moon. Making it even more remarkable is that, albeit by the opaque standards of previous elections, this is the most transparent in the 70-year history of the U.N., where the selection of the world’s “secular pope” has traditionally been carried out in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms.

It is perhaps a blessing that both Trump and Clinton are too preoccupied to pay much attention to the secretary-generalship issue, as their influence on that election is unlikely to be constructive. It was, after all, Clinton’s close comrade-in-arms Madeleine Albright who used American veto power to ensure that Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the only Arab ever to hold the position, was not allowed a second term, and whose imperious attitude to the organization led to perennial tensions with even close U.S. allies.

Surprisingly, Trump has been too busy with populist xenophobia about Mexicans to bother about the U.N. It has not been one of his targets so far. It would seem that his supporters were a natural constituency for those who used to believe that UNESCO World Heritage sites in the U.S. were a U.N. land grab and potential bases for black helicopters to take over the country. Maybe looking for Mexicans and Muslims under the bed has diverted their attention—but, in any case, Trump’s nose for business would remind him that much of his shaky real estate empire in Manhattan would be adversely affected if the United Nations and its high rent diplomats were to quit. He built the ugly Trump Tower directly opposite the U.N. to cater to them, after all—and even offered his services as developer to Kofi Annan to refurbish the old U.N. HQ.

In any case, another president has intervened in a significant way. Danish Social Democrat leader Mogens Lykketoft was elected last year as president of the General Assembly, and as a few of his predecessors occasionally did, he decided to make his mark since his term coincided with the selection of the secretary-general. Although in practice it is overlooked, under strict diplomatic protocol the U.N. president counts as a head of state, with 21-gun salutes and all that, while the secretary-general officially is merely ranked as the equivalent of a foreign minister!

The actual power to nominate is still firmly in the hands of the Security Council.

In the real world, however, the secretary-general is there for at least one, and—except in the case of Boutros-Ghali—for two terms, while the presidency rotates annually. Lykketoft has made his mark on posterity by getting the Security Council to agree to a more transparent secretary-general selection process. With most of the membership backing him, he secured the Security Council’s agreement to make public the names and qualifications of the candidates and to present them to the whole membership of the United Nations.

That work was backed up by the various foundations and NGOs around the U.N., and meetings were held in New York and around the world for candidates to strut their stuff in front of diplomats, academics and human rights supporters, while governments and PR firms touted their candidacies.

Transparency has its limits, however. The actual power to nominate is still firmly in the hands of the Security Council, and thus subject to the veto power of any or all of the five permanent members. There have been three straw polls, with the last taking place at the end of the August, in which the Council’s 15 members record whether they would “encourage,” “discourage” or have no opinion about the various candidates. Under the official procedure, the president of the Security Council merely informs the General Assembly president that the poll has taken place—without sharing the results. Absurdly, most or all of the Council members immediately rush and tell the press what the voting results are. It is a secret ballot, leaving participants in the dark about whether the “discourage” votes imply a veto coming down the line.

Complicating the already arcane process are underlying presumptions, none of which are actual rules. Firstly, the East European group has never had a secretary-general and claims it is their turn. Against that is the reality that the group is a Cold War hangover, most of whose members have either joined or applied to join the European Union. However, Moscow, not traditionally favorable to the rotation principle—or indeed to the often anti-Russian governments of its former clients—has become more sympathetic to the idea, not least since several of the candidates were brought up and groomed in the Communist era and tend to pay attention to what Vladimir Putin would tell them. These are, of course, unlikely to attract enthusiastic support from the Western veto holders.

The second principle being invoked is that it is long overdue for a woman to take the position—which is, in abstract, entirely true. However, observation of the records of Margaret Thatcher, Albright, Golda Meir or Indira Gandhi in high office leads to questions about whether it follows that having a woman in office is good for women in general or the world—which leads to the final, and often overlooked, principle of the candidates’ competence and integrity.

Theoretically, the various hustings have allowed the candidates to demonstrate this to a watching world. The earnest assumption is that the Security Council members will have to take this into account when they make their final choice. But they have their ready-made excuses. A consistently clear front runner was the Portuguese former head of the U.N. refugee program, António Guterres, who has now managed to accrete several “discourages”—and one can be sure that the excuse is that Portugal is on the wrong end of Europe, and that he is male. On the other hand, one of the stars of the hustings was Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, a star of the Climate Change program, whom the audience clearly rated highly. But she has amassed a surprising number of “discourage” votes—the real reason being that she seems principled and outspoken, not least on issues like Climate Change, on which many member states are still shuffling their feet. And, of course, the excuse will be that while she is a woman, she is not Eastern European.

Other candidates have been amassing more and more negatives, and the field seems very volatile. If the Russians nixed Guterres, currently in second place is Slovakian diplomat Miroslav Lajčák, who has just surged from 10th place, implying some lobbying behind the scenes. A former communist party member now with EU credentials, he might bridge the gap. The runners up are Irina Bokova, the Bulgarian head of UNESCO, who seems to have Moscow’s tacit support based on close connections, and Vuk Jeremic of Serbia, whose vociferous opposition to Kosovar independence makes him unlikely to get Western support.

Bokova is close to the Russians, by family and upbringing, and has devoted her time at UNESCO to canvassing for the job, but the British and others are very suspicious of her sharp elbows and feel that her ambition led her to neglect her actual duties at UNESCO. But she is a woman, and she is Eastern European, so the question is how disgruntled they will be about her. She is certainly adroit, getting credit from the Non-Aligned Movement for allowing Palestinian membership in UNESCO on the agenda, while reassuring the Israelis (and their friends) that it had nothing to do with her!

As the process moves on, the polls will reveal whether the opposition to the various candidates goes as far as actual vetoes. Perhaps it is a blessing that so far the election is below the horizon for the various lobbies in Washington, since there are too many factors already complicating this process.

MOROCCO’S LAME DUCK

In the meantime, Ban Ki-moon is clearly in lame duck mode as far as the Moroccans are concerned. The Moroccans ritually abuse him in every speech, which is one thing. But the French and other Security Council members let them get away with it. Many of the MINURSO staff in Western Sahara have still not been allowed back into the country. The Moroccans and their French allies, with U.S. complicity, continue to fight off any attempts to include a human rights monitoring component in the mission, making it unique among U.N. missions.

As we go to press, there are signs that Morocco, emboldened by Franco-American acquiescence, is encroaching beyond the cease-fire line in the south, risking provocation with both Polisario and Mauritania. In an oblique way it shows the potential power of a secretary-general—if he (or she) is backed by significant powers. As Boutros-Ghali, exasperated with U.S.-backed mandates from the Security Council unaccompanied by any resources, complained, “I can do nothing. I have no army. I have no money. I have no experts. I am borrowing everything. If the member states don’t want it, what can I do?”

In his day, the only power in a position to provide support was the U.S., which would lead to palpitations in any secretary-general, whether it were Trump or Clinton in Washington. But the world has changed. Europe, even in its current disheveled state, China, even Russia, might be in a position to back an enterprising incumbent. Certainly Washington’s (and Congress’ and the Lobby’s) effective financial veto is not what it was.

But the new secretary-general will immediately cope with the impasse in Syria, where all the talk of a Brave New World of responsibilities to protect, collective concern for humanitarian law, and international action are going up in a firestorm stirred by cynical bystanders who are managing to give Levantine politics a bad time. Everyone’s enemy is someone’s friend, but the U.N. is supposed to be the enemy of inhumanity. And humanity has few friends in this fight. ◙

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U.N. correspondent Ian Williams’ book Untold: the Real Story of the United Nations will be published by Just World Books in Spring 2017.

Best Person for the Job. UN SG Guterres.

http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2016/10/letter-from-america/

Letter from America

Written By: Ian Williams

Tribune  Published: October 25, 2016 L

It was not good week for the bean counters. António Guterres is neither East European, nor female, but the newly designated ninth UN Secretary General is indisputably the best person for the job. In the end, it is almost reassuring to note that the permanent five and the other members of the Council care enough about the organization to choose the best candidate!

Guterres walked to an easy finish as soon as the first “real” straw ballot – in which the veto-holding permanent members showed their true colours by voting with red ballot papers. If those who wanted a woman had united behind one suitably qualified candidate, they might have won the day, but seven women running against each other made it easier for the best candidate to win. In fact, from the permanent five only Britain said it would prefer a female candidate, but presumably drew the line at an Argentinean foreign minister who wants the Malvinas back, or a Bulgarian apparatchik with Putin’s hearty support. The key issue was whether veto-wielding Moscow could take a West European democratic socialist. It was helped when Bulgaria supported a second Bulgarian candidate weakening the expedient Russian stand for an East European and a woman, by which they meant Irina Bukova the head of UNESCO.

The newly “transparent” procedure, under which candidates addressed the General Assembly with its 193 members, did expose the selection to the light of day. Even if the Security Council made the final decision, it did so knowing it had to choose from candidates who had been under the scrutiny of the Assembly and the public. One wonders whether Kurt Waldheim or Perez de Cuellar would have passed such scrutiny.

Guterres’ candidacy was also helped by support from African countries who maintain good relations with Portugal, whose socialist Rose revolution ended the colonial power’s wars of repression, and also by his record as head of the UN refugee agency, the most overworked, active and least hidebound section of the UN apparatus.

Not least, as a former Prime Minister of an important, but non-threatening power, with his relationships with world leaders going back years, not to mention contacts across the whole spider’s web of UN organizations, Guterres is not going to be a mere secretary, taking dictation from the great powers. He has an independent stature and presence that will help him tell the not-so-good great powers when they are failing in their responsibilities. Sadly, as we see in Syria, and indeed Yemen, that is all too often.

Intriguingly but understandably, the elephant in the room is that none of the candidates mentioned the Israel-Palestine issue, even though it occupies so much time and effort at the UN. This was an issue that Ban Ki-Moon had taken some time to acquaint himself with, and after visiting Gaza he quickly learnt that Washington’s views were not shared by the rest of the world. Within a short time, Ban was condemning settlements and assaults on Gaza with a brio that would have risked his suspension from the Labour Party as an anti-Semite.

In contrast, Guterres hits the ground running. As Portuguese Prime Minister, as President of the Socialist International, and above all as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, he has been deeply involved in the Middle East in all its manifestations, not least in its tragic role as one of the globe’s leading producers of refugees.

He lamented in 2014, that the world’s various refugee crises “pale in comparison to the desperate situation of the Palestinians, the largest protracted refugee situation in the world”. He pointed out that Palestinians in Syria were “being forced to flee for the second time,” but it was “shocking” that Gazans “could not even flee to seek safety” from the latest Israeli onslaught. “No one wants to be a refugee. But for the people of Gaza, not even that was an option.”

The rational conclusion is that Israel once again faces a UN Secretary General who is quite prepared to talk to its leaders, some of whom he knew from the Socialist International, but who will firmly remind them that they are not exempt from the UN Charter and International Law.

A Secretary General has many other problems to face. Climate Change, world poverty, the teetering international financial situation and great power conflicts more threatening than anything since the fall of the Berlin Wall. On all of these, he can do little or nothing without the backing of the world’s major powers, but the evidence of his career is that he is in position to do better than any other candidate would have been. His election is good news for the UN and the world.

While in internationalist mode, Guterres is a former President of the Socialist International, from which the Labour Party withdrew with no debate or membership consultation a few years ago. It is now only an observer party,  though it actually refounded it in 1951, Neil Kinnock is still listed as an honorary President and its headquarters is still in London. The new Labour leadership may have other things to think about,but it would be good to rejoin the SI and align with the New Secretary General.

Herod to head UNICEF?

Israel Wins Chairmanship of U.N. Legal Committee, Will Seek Security Council Seat

By Ian Williams

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visits an UNRWA school in Gaza, June 28, 2016. (U.N. PHOTO/ESKINDER DEBEBE)

EVEN THOUGH, ON one level, Israeli contempt for the U.N. and international law knows no bounds, we have written before about their desperate deep psychological need for the organization’s approval and to abuse the body’s prestige.

At the end of May, the Israeli Mission chose the U.N. General Assembly Hall as the venue for a daylong “Building Bridges Not Boycotts conference,” which was essentially a rally of pro-Israel organizations on how to stop the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It is somewhat odd that the U.N. would host a rally against efforts to enforce its decisions on the illegality of occupation and settlements, but one has to appreciate the inexorable pressure on officials from the U.S. and other allies.

For example, several years ago, when Israel secured temporary admission to the “West European and Other Group” (WEOG), many of the Europeans were very upset, and only acquiesced because of American pressure. Partly it was principle—not wanting to be associated with Israeli crimes—but it was also professional jealousy, so they insisted that Israel would not actually get nominated for important positions. Hard work and the adoption of pro-Israel positions by conservatives all over Europe bore fruit this year, when Israel secured WEOG’s nomination for chair of the U.N.’s Sixth Committee, the Legal Committee. It then went on to win the position in a secret ballot.

It was well managed. WEOG usually has contested positions, and so it put up stalking horse candidates to make it look like a contest. Clearly the fix was in, however, and so Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon became chairman of the U.N.’s Legal Committee. His opposition to the U.N.’s mandated two-state solution and his support for Israel’s continued occupation of most of the West Bank, not to mention illegal settlements, might make that anomalous anywhere else, but in this political atmosphere King Herod could become director general of UNICEF with the right backing.

To pile it on, forthcoming will be Israel’s bid for a seat in the Security Council. The election will take place in 2018, and contending already for two WEOG seats are Germany and Belgium. Needless to say, Tel Aviv’s message to Germany has been, “Thanks for all the submarines and the cash. But how dare you stand against Israel with your record!” The Germans are not, so far, going quietly into that good night. After all, they (and many other countries) think they deserve a permanent seat there, and residual guilt will not hold up against realpolitik in the country that invented it. In fact, WEOG often breaks out of the cozy rotation system for U.N. offices and has contested elections, and Israel’s behavior is not such as to inspire European sentimentality on the issue! 

But once again, the odd scofflaw complementarity works. Security Council members often have included countries like Indonesia, occupying East Timor, and Morocco, occupying Western Sahara. In one sense, it is only fair to let Israel share in the breathtaking hypocrisy. 

Perhaps that ability was rarely so well shown as with the Middle East Quartet. While the Quartet has been much improved since former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was squeezed out from the special representative sinecure that his grateful chums in Washington had secured for him, on the other hand it still has all the marks of its origins—which were an attempt to defang Russia, the EU and the U.N. on the Palestinian question by binding them into a consensus with the U.S., which is of course bound in that strange masochistic relationship with Israel.

However, considering how toothless Russia, the U.N. and the EU had become on the question, one did wonder why all the effort and showmanship was necessary. A critical part of the equation is the Israeli and American need to buffer and neutralize the clear statements of international and binding resolutions of the United Nations that are explicitly accepted and supported by all but one and a half nations in the world. And even the U.S. and Israel nominally accept them—they just do not accept their enforcement.

The U.S., as a founder of the United Nations, knows that the resolutions are binding but finds it politically inexpedient, for domestic reasons, to try to enforce them on the U.S. So the effort is to browbeat the Palestinians into voluntarily abandoning their rights in bilateral negotiations with Israel in an unbalanced settlement that would then be ratified by the U.N.

So far, there is enough of a residual sense of legality and anti-colonial solidarity in the U.N. to ensure that it would not ratify a settlement without the assent of the Palestinians. In a sense, the Palestinians are lucky they don’t have a fully recognized and functioning state, because if they did someone would have arranged a coup and a complaisant regime to put its seal on the surrender. 

Nevertheless, the basic pattern remains. The Quartet allegedly monitors progress on the famous Road Map that got lost in the glove compartment almost immediately, while the Israelis do their own thing and continually complain about the Palestinians’ inability to respond positively, indeed rhapsodically, to land grabs, demolitions, killings and imprisonment. 

History has many examples of heavily armed bullies vilifying those they persecute, but Israel and its supporters are surely unique in complaining about the ingratitude of the Palestinians for their treatment. Long overdue, a certain tone of exasperation is appearing in the statements of the various Quartet components.

EXASPERATED QUARTET MEMBERS

Ban Ki-moon’s exasperation was evident in his statement on the Quartet’s report in July, but he at least upheld the U.N.’s legitimacy and cited the Quartet’s pledge “to actively support an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).” He also reiterated that “a negotiated two-state outcome that meets Israeli security needs and creates a sovereign Palestinian state, ends the occupation that began in 1967, and resolves all permanent status issues is the only way to achieve an enduring peace.”

And we can see how chastened Israel was after the Quartet had wagged three and half fingers at it. Ban immediately had to criticize Israel’s announcement of 560 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, as well as moves to build 240 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. “This raises legitimate questions about Israel’s long-term intentions, which are compounded by continuing statements of some Israeli ministers calling for the annexation of the West Bank,” which of course have included demands by the current Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon.

A frustrated Ban in his statement reiterated “that settlements are illegal under international law and urges the Government of Israel to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace and a just final status agreement.” He was “deeply disappointed that this announcement comes only four days after the Middle East Quartet called on Israel to cease its policy of settlement construction and expansion.”

But at least Ban is not out on a limb: even Russia was upset by Israel’s indecorous finger to the Quartet, saying, "Moscow is seriously worried over new settlement projects in occupied Palestinian territories." The Foreign Ministry added that "Such settlements are illegal under the international law and are not recognized by the international community." 

The plans "run counter to the report of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators that was made public on July 1," the Russian statement complained, "Along with inadmissibility of violence and incitement to violence, the report strongly recommends to stop construction and expansion of settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.”

So what will be done about it? As we go to press, the current U.S. president is haggling about how big the next arms aid deal for Israel will be, and the two contenders for his position will be seeing by how much they can inflate it. Rule of Law, anyone?  ◙

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Ban Right on Iran

WRMEA, March/April 2014, Pages 28-29

United Nations Report

Despite Outcome, Ban Was Right to Invite Iran to Syria Talks

By Ian Williams

U.N. and Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi (l) and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Jan. 22 press conference closing the Geneva II peace talks on Syria. (Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images)

George Orwell invented “non-persons” in his novel 1984—people so politically incorrect they were treated as if they did not exist. He also invented the “Two Minutes Hate,” in which crowds were worked into paroxysms of rage at the mention of Big Brother’s political opponent.

Today it is not Big Brother but the Dog’s Tail which decides which is a non-country or a non-person, and identifies which countries are so unfit that they can only be ritually vilified. In Washington, the powers that be seem to blithely forget the years in which the old China lobby persuaded them to ignore Beijing, and the sore loser faction bade them to boycott Hanoi—or how, until recently, no one could talk to the Palestinians. Even now, we can only talk to some Palestinians.

In a recent example of this selective and consciously directed amnesia, Norway’s permanent representative to the U.N. told the Security Council that his country was “deeply concerned about the deteriorating economic and humanitarian situation in Gaza. We call for the lifting of the restrictions in compliance with Security Council Resolution 1860 in all its elements, including the need for security for all the civilian populations.”

Compared with what comes out of mealy-mouthed Washington, this sounds like a strong statement. But readers accustomed to the sound of silence will note the absence of names in this otherwise resounding declaration by Norway in the first Security Council meeting of 2014 on the Middle East situation. In what perilously approached Orwell’s Doublethink, Norway could not bring itself to name Israel as the country maintaining the restrictions its diplomat was deploring in defiance of previous resolutions.

In contrast, Iran did not disguise its favorite target the way it used to, since the former “Zionist Entity” has now graduated to become “The Israeli Regime”—which, the Iranian envoy pointed out, “is the only one in the region that possesses all types of Weapons of Mass Destruction but is not a party to any of the treaties banning them.”

He added that it “should also be compelled to join such treaties, in particular to accede to the NPT, without any further delay and precondition, and place all its nuclear activities under the IAEA comprehensive safeguards, in order to remove the only obstacle for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East proposed by Iran in 1974.”

One might not totally appreciate the messenger, but the message is spot on!

Despite, or perhaps even because of, such eminently good common sense, Washington banned Tehran from the peace talks in Geneva, to which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon very sensibly had invited it.

As Ban recognized, you do not make peace by refusing to talk to opponents, and vetoing Iran’s involvement makes it more difficult to achieve peace. The whole debacle suggests that the Obama administration is acting from the Clinton-era script when its dealings with the U.N. are concerned. It is not surprising that Secretary- General Ban has quipped that SG stood for “Scape Goat,” but this debacle, unfairly, had him dubbed as Washington’s poodle—for taking a step with the full knowledge of the State Department and U.S. administration, but which the U.S. then expediently repudiated.

Despite being the victim of poison gas attacks itself, it is true that Iran has not exactly covered itself with ethical or humanitarian glory during the Syrian tragedy. But then, neither has Russia, which has supplied the bulk of the weaponry for the regime. And yet no one has suggested banning Moscow from the talks, or even the Assad regime itself. Additionally, after that regime, among the major obstacles to a rational and democratic solution are the fundamentalist fighters bankrolled by major Arab oil states—with whom the U.S. maintains the closest and most amicable relations.

The problem is that in some quarters—including these armers and bankers of war criminals—Iran is a non-country, which leads to palpably nonsensical acrobatics by Washington and others. The U.S. can have bases in countries bankrolling “terrorist” groups, but because those profoundly undemocratic regimes do not like Iran, the U.S. must be careful about talking to Tehran.

So Israel could sell the ayatollahs weapons in the course of Iran-Contra, during which the U.S. itself was using Tehran to arm right-wing terrorists in Nicaragua. The U.S. and Iran can both support the Iraqi government in defeating Sunni insurgents and terrorists in Iraq, and indeed colluded to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But because President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were, quite correctly, talking to Iran on the nuclear issue, they were on a short leash from AIPAC on Iranian entanglements. This time the dog had more than one tail: There was external pressure from Arabs and Israel, and of course the internal pressure from Congress being whipped up by AIPAC.

Clearly in the real world, it is to everyone’s advantage to have at the table a major player in the conflict—if you want it to end. But diplomacy is often best orchestrated to the sound of silence. Not mentioning issues is often crucial to getting parties to agree to talks, and so Iran’s invitation to the peace talks involved eliding the issue of whether Iran explicitly accepted the Geneva Communiqué on which the talks were based. It had not, but showed signs that it could be nudged that way.

So Ban, with the full knowledge of the U.S., invited Iran to the talks, despite the fudge on whether or not Tehran had signed off on the communiqué. He was taking a bold risk. He rightly believed that Iran should be there, but the talks were the property of the participants, each of which had an implicit veto.

It was a delicate operation, depending on complicity and discretion from all parties. Someone somewhere blew enough to bring the house of cards down. The U.S. side seems to have demanded explicit guarantees of Iranian acceptance of the communiqué, which precipitated an explicit repudiation of them by Tehran. That led to Washington demanding that Ban withdraw the invitation to Iran. American briefers immediately began to castigate Ban’s incompetence, even though it was U.S. diplomatic ineptitude that seems to have precipitated the collapse.

Was it the usual Iran haters who blew the structure down, or did someone in the administration do it so that they could appease AIPAC for defeating it on the sanctions issue? There were so many places such a complex operation could be toppled, it would be difficult to tell. It could be that one part of the administration knew what was happening, and another didn’t.

Clearly, Ban also, justifiably, feels let down by the Iranians for rising to the American bait so quickly. They should have just shut up and turned up.

But the name-calling cannot disguise the inalienable truth that if the talks are to be successful then Iran should be involved in them, that Ban was right to invite them and the U.S. foolish to disinvite them.

As a corollary, if the U.S. had a coherent foreign policy it would build on its common ground with Iran—in Iraq, in Afghanistan and, increasingly, on the nuclear issue, to persuade Tehran that there were advantages in working with Washington to force Assad to the negotiating table. Indeed, the U.S., as its own hydrocarbons bubble up out of the ground, could persuade the Arab Iran-haters to cease their pernicious activities in backing terrorist bands that tend to make Assad look good, even as they open a fifth column in the opposition’s ranks.

Washington could have expressed its regrets at the Iranian invitation, and let it stand. It is not in the longterm interests of the U.S., or any other responsive great power, to diminish the appearance of independence by the United Nations. In the end, the Geneva Talks epitomize the U.N.’s dilemma. The organization is needed to provide a neutral space, an arena for the negotiations. But it also needs the active collaboration of its most powerful and involved members to produce results.

A secretary-general can only play the hand he is dealt, and in this case Ban’s two aces turned to jokers. He should not let it dissuade him from trying to do the right thing in the future.

Truth to tell and the uses and uses of ambiguity

The Sound of Silence

Written By: Ian Williams

Tribune  February 9, 2014 Last modified: February 5, 2014

The Geneva talks on Syria showed that the current United States administration has followed the old habits of its predecessors – putting truth in Ban Ki-moon’s quip that the SG stood for “scapegoat” rather than Secretary General.
It has been unkindly said that a diplomat is someone who is sent abroad to lie for his country. In fact, skilled diplomats would not lie, but they can be very parsimonious with the truth. Just as in real life, it is not good policy to tell people that they are ugly – even if it is true. If you are trying to reconcile enemies, you chose your words carefully. George Orwell wrote disparagingly in The Politics of the English Language about how official speech “falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details”, but that is precisely what you have to do to get warring parties who are not necessarily rational in their discourse to talk to one another.
Fudging issues is often crucial to securing agreement to talks, and so Iran’s invitation to Geneva involved eliding the issue of whether Iran explicitly accepted the communiqué on which the talks were based. It had not done so explicitly, but showed signs that it could be nudged that way.
So Ban, with the full knowledge of the US, invited Iran to the talks, despite the fudge on whether Teheran had signed off on the Geneva communiqué. He was taking a bold risk. He rightly believed that Iran should be there, but the talks were the property of the participants, each of which had an implicit veto.
It was a delicate operation, depending on complicity and discretion from all parties. Someone somewhere blew hard enough to bring the house of cards down. The US side seems to have belatedly demanded explicit guarantees of Iranian acceptance of the communiqué, which precipitated an explicit repudiation of them from Teheran. That led to Washington demanding that Ban withdraw the invitation to Iran. US briefers immediately began to castigate Ban’s incompetence even though it was US diplomatic ineptitude that seems to have precipitated the collapse.
This is stupid on so many levels, not least since it owed as much to covering the rears of Barack Obama and John Kerry. This debacle, unfairly, had Ban dubbed the US’s poodle by some and incompetent by others for taking a step with the full knowledge of the US administration but which the US then expediently repudiated.
Because Obama and Kerry were, quite correctly, talking to Iran on the nuclear issue. But they were on a short leash from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Iranian entanglements. This time the dog had more than one tail. There was external pressure from Gulf Arabs and Israel, and the internal pressure from the US Congress being whipped in by AIPAC. The US could have expressed its regrets at the Iranian invitation, and let it stand. It is not in the long-term interests of Washington, or any other responsible great power, to diminish the appearance of independence by the United Nations.
Ban also, justifiably, feels let down by the Iranians for rising to the American bait so quickly. They should have just shut up and turned up. But the name-calling cannot disguise the inalienable truth that, if the talks are to be successful, then the Iranians should be involved and that Ban was right to invite them.
As a corollary, if the US had a joined-up foreign policy, it would build on its common ground with Iran – in Iraq, in Afghanistan and increasingly on the nuclear issue, to persuade the ayatollahs that there were advantages in working with the US to force Bashar al-Assad to the negotiating table.
Indeed, the US could try to persuade the Arab Iran-haters to cease their pernicious activities in backing terrorist bands in Syria that tend to make Assad look good even as they open a fifth column in the opposition’s ranks.
In the end, the Geneva talks epitomise the UN’s dilemma. The organisation is needed to provide a neutral space, an arena for the negotiations. But the UN needs the active collaboration of its most powerful and involved members states to produce results. A Secretary General can only play the hand he is dealt. In this case, Ban’s two aces turned out to be to jokers. He should not let it dissuade him from trying to do the right thing in the future.

About Ian Williams

Ian Williams is Tribune's UN correspondent

UN Again in the Crosshairs

UN Again in the Crosshairs
Foreign Policy in Focus

By Ian Williams, January 28, 2011
The UN’s mythical black helicopters are back. The triumphant, reality-challenged new Republican majority in the House of Representatives imagine that they are flying in formation up the Potomac in a bid to take over the United States.

Until recently, the people who used to get so upset about the UN’s alleged plans to use their helicopters to take over America had been hunting other snarks, like the president’s birth certificate or illegal immigrants taking our jobs and going on welfare, or they'd been dressing up in 18th-century costumes at Tea Party rallies. Obama’s other sins were so absorbing that they hardly noticed when he fulfilled his predecessor’s promise and paid the UN dues on time.

But with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in charge of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a change is in the air. She has already declared her ambition to control the UN by cutting off its money supply. She said in her prepared remarks that she wants “reforms first, pay later” and plans to push legislation that “conditions our contributions - our strongest leverage - on real, sweeping reform, including moving the UN regular budget to a voluntary funding basis. That way, U.S. taxpayers can pay for the UN programs and activities that advance our interests and values, and if other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves.” In reality, most of the $6 billion she cites goes to peacekeeping operations supported and indeed proposed by the United States, and only the tiniest proportion goes to any items that the United States has opposed.
Audience for UN-bashing

In addition to the Tea Party movement and the know-nothing movement, Ros-Lehtinen appeals to two vociferous and powerful constituencies. There’s the Cuban American lobby, which opposes the UN because Cuba is a member and because it allowed Fidel Castro, in healthier times, to come to New York to address it. Then there are the diehard Likudnik Israel supporters who think that the UN, after having partitioned Palestine and admitted Israel, is now anti-Israel. The Jerusalem Post, for example, explicitly linked payment of UN dues to the treatment of Israel.

Ros-Lehtinen actually takes positions that are often worse than those of the Israeli government. One of her donors is Irving Moskovitz, the gambling magnate who finances settlements in East Jerusalem, and she has called for the United States to defund the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, which successive Israeli governments have appreciated because, in effect, it has shifted much of the financial burden in the Occupied Territories to the international community.

Ros-Lehtinen’s actions, in opposing multilateralism, will not likely result in a political disadvantage for the Republicans. The Obama administration pays lip service to the UN and multilateral obligations. But the failure of the Democrats after two years control of the White House and Capitol Hill to ratify crucial multilateral instruments on child soldiers, land mines, or the Law of the Sea suggests that the administration’s heart was not really in it. Certainly the chances of any of these treaties passing in the balance of this presidential term are somewhat minimal.
The Broader Attack

In the past, critics have rounded on the secretary general as the symbol of the UN. Much of the fury directed at Kofi Annan followed his admission, when backed into a corner by a BBC reporter, that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. Kofi Annan was African and radiated numinous trustworthiness, which is of course why UN opponents went to such efforts to go after him personally during the “Oil For Food” imbroglio. Significantly, Ros-Lehtinen called one of the attorneys involved in the commission investigating these allegations, Robert Appleton, as a “prosecution witness” this week in her hearing on the UN.

The latest attacks on the secretary general come from Inga Brit Ahlenius, the Swedish former head of the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). Last year, Ahlenius sent a scathing but disjointed attack on Ban Ki Moon that focused largely on his refusal to authorize the appointment of Appleton as head of investigations in her office. Ban’s official reason was that Ahlenius refused to abide by UN rules designed to ensure gender balance by submitting a shortlist that included any women. Appleton’s appearance for Ros-Lehtinen certainly lends Ban’s refusal additional retrospective legitimacy. Appleton was under suspicion of being a consistent source of leaks of half-digested and ill-substantiated inquiries of the type that OIOS was notorious for.

This week in Sweden, Ahlenius released her memoirs in what appears to be an attempt to capitalize on Capitol Hill’s revived anti-UN mood and the appearance of her would-be protégé there. However, in Sweden, where she had been previously fired from a similar job in the government, Ahlenius attracted little interest from the Swedish media, and her crusading image was almost simultaneously tarnished with a report that she had stifled whistleblowers herself.
Reform Redux

Given the new climate of UN-phobia on Capitol Hill, some of Ahlenius’s accusations will be recycled as part of Ros-Lehtinen’s repetition of the perennial call for UN “reform.” Such calls are usually accompanied by the mantra of alleged “waste, mismanagement, and corruption” at the UN.

U.S. critics of the organization seem to blithely ignore the beam in their own eye to concentrate on the mote in the UN’s. Certainly over the years, the UN has wasted millions of dollars. But the United States has wasted tens of billions of dollars. The United States, for instance, admits that it cannot account for $10 billion dollars in surpluses from the UN Oil For Food Program. Calls for UN “reform” are tendentious. There is little doubt that the organization needs modernization, but that would involve revision of the Charter and the consent of other members. The critics’ definition of waste is money spent on projects that they disagree with, even if, for example, they are peacekeeping missions that the U.S. delegation has suggested or supported.

As this campaign revs up, Ros-Lehtinen and her colleagues should be challenged from the beginning on their premises. They do not want to reform the organization: they want to control it or, barring that, starve it to death.

Ian Williams, senior analyst and long time contributor to FPIF, is a New York-based author and journalist. He is currently working on a new edition of his book, The UN For Beginners.

SG = Scape Goat!

The Man With the World On His Shoulders

Ian Williams

Published 27 September 2010 New Statesman


The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, talks to Ian Williams about his critics, Israel and the challenges of global leadership.

On 20 September, the largest assembly of world leaders since the Millennium Summit of 2000 gathered at the United Nations in New York for the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a globally agreed set of targets to halve world poverty by 2015. However, the summit was neither commemoration nor celebration, but more of an emergency revival meeting. The financial crisis could have made it an autopsy, but the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, backed by Gordon Brown, ensured that the G20 meeting in 2009 kept the MDGs on the agenda. These meetings were about keeping them on track.

From the beginning of his term in office, in 2007, Ban made the MDGs and climate change signature issues. He worked hard to ensure an influential turnout for this General Assembly, lobbying governments across the globe to attend. But ostentatious do-gooding is not in the quiet style of the former South Korean foreign minister. Indeed, his focus on internal diplomacy with heads of state has caused him to neglect some of the public diplomacy opportunities offered by his current position.

Ban's youthful ambition in Korea was always to be a diplomat, he told me when we met at his UN office this year. "In 1962, when I was a third-grade senior in high school, I came to the US as an exchange student, brought by the American Red Cross, and met President John F Kennedy at the White House. It was a most inspirational experience as a very young boy from a very poor country, destroyed by the Korean war. I thought, what should I do for my country, totally devastated by war? I thought I could contribute by being a diplomat, and helping enhance the status and prestige of Korea."

His appreciation for the organisation dates from the same era: "The UN has been and continues to be a beacon of hope to Koreans. It was the UN which really saved us - 16 countries came to the aid of Korea when North Korea attacked. It was the first enforcement action under the UN Charter, after only five years!"

Ban, approachable when he interacts with the UN press corps, originally ducked a high media profile. His modus operandi has been to make explicit statements of the UN's position on specific questions, but to refrain from direct public criticisms of national leaders. Yet he told me that his meetings with leaders "have been quite straightforward and very vocal . . . Most of my senior advisers were quite surprised by how outspoken I was."
Simmering sentiment

His diplomatic style, however, is more umpire than player. He says, "The secretary general is not a negotiator. The members do the negotiation; we provide and facilitate . . . it is the member states which have to negotiate, which have to agree." That was about climate change, but since the MDGs were entrusted to the UN, his team has been retargeting them, in the hope of concentrating members' attention on the most cost-effective goals: technology, education, women, small farmers and global health, particularly that of women and children, as maternal and infant mortality are among the most visibly failing MDGs. As Ban said ahead of the meetings: "No area has more potential to set off a ripple effect - a virtuous cycle - across the goals than women's health and empowerment."

But his efforts have not been helped by recent attacks from international diplomats, echoed by the press. In August 2009, a letter was leaked to the press from one of Norway's ambassadors to the UN, condemning the secretary general's "absence" and passivity in the face of critical crises such as those in Burma or Somalia. At the same time, the neoconservative writer Jacob Heilbrunn published an article in the journal Foreign Policy describing him as a "nowhere man" and "general nonentity". Anti-UN sentiment in the US is always simmering; as a result of these attacks, Ban's aides have realised how vulnerable his low profile and his tendency only to react to events have left him.

Yet Ban has been more outspoken on international matters than expected. Many liberal UN supporters had low expectations of him when he started, given that he was a nominee of the Bush administration and seemingly a protégé of the arch-conservative John Bolton (acting US ambassador to the UN from 2005-2006). But during the hustings for secretary general he expressed unequivocal support for the International Criminal Court, against which Bolton had fought obsessively, and for the Responsibility to Protect initiative. His position, he says, came from his time as foreign minister when he visited the massacre memorial in Rwanda. "I was so saddened and horrified by what I saw there. I was convinced the international community had to take steps to prevent anything like what had happened."

On the Middle East, his statements have been considerably more explicit than those of his immediate predecessor, Kofi Annan. With limited experience of the region before office, he initially adopted a position that was reflexively pro-Israeli. But greater exposure to the intricate details has clearly been educational, and his recent statements on Gaza and the aid flotilla protest stand in contrast to the tactful silence of most western leaders. When Israel insulted Vice-President Joe Biden by announcing new settlement-building during Biden's visit to Tel Aviv in March, Ban reiterated "that settlements are illegal under international law". He also scored a first for the UN by securing $10.5m from Tel Aviv by way of compensation for the UN premises in Gaza that Israel destroyed during Operation Cast Lead.
Hue and cry

“My dialogues with Israel and Arab governments have always been based on my convictions, human rights and resolution of differences of opinions - and in that regard I have had trust from both parts," he told me. "Of course my dialogue with the Israelis has been quite difficult," he conceded, but despite the challenges he has kept open channels of communication.

Luckily for Ban, he has not had the difficulties that Annan faced, of confronting warmongering pressure from the US and the UK as they moved towards the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Obama administration has also been more amenable and not followed the Democratic line, set by Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright, of browbeating the UN and the secretary general into submission - never mind the outright hostility of George W Bush.

That might not last. With the MDGs needing cash from the world powers, and the prospect of a Republican majority in Congress after the midterm elections in November, it is likely that the usual American hue and cry against the UN and its leader will begin again. This would only be amplified by a sense of betrayal that "our" nominee appears to believe in the institution as an active force for international progress. Ban would benefit from engaging in further high-profile diplomacy to let the world know that this is exactly what he believes.

Ian Williams is the author of "The UN for Beginners" (Writers and Readers, £6.99)
How to save 16 million lives

Ten years on, progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is not encouraging. The world leaders assembled in
New York for this month's summit heard that the eight commitments, which include pledges to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and to combat HIV/Aids, will not be met by 2015 without considerably more investment and effort.

The largest gaps between commitment and reality are in child and maternal mortality. The MDGs pledge to reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 and to reduce the number of maternal deaths by three-quarters over the same period.

Nick Clegg, representing the UK at the summit, announced that the UK would commit to doubling the number of lives of women and babies saved by 2015 through "reorientating" the government's aid programme. As well as ring-fencing the development aid budget, the coalition has promised to meet the UN target of raising aid levels to 0.7 per cent of gross national income by 2013.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also unveiled a strategy focused on women and children. It is estimated that the plan could save 16 million lives by 2015 by improving funding for maternal and infant care in developing countries.

Caroline Crampton
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Ban-Bashing

Waste at the UN? (Foreign Policy in Focus)
By Ian Williams, August 16, 2010
No matter the administration in Washington, it’s always a good time to attack the United Nations. The familiar trope is “waste, mismanagement, and corruption.” The Oil for Food investigation during the Bush years, for instance, generated immense amounts of smoke but in the end very little fire. Now we learn that U.S. auditors have “found that the Pentagon can’t account for more than 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money.” The media that actually mentioned the story failed to acknowledge that the money was in fact the surplus from the UN Oil for Food Fund.
Of course there is corruption and waste at the UN. But as this report from Iraq demonstrates yet again, the scale is minimal compared to the corruption and waste of the U.S. government. One reason for the disparity is that the world organization has so little money.  In the early 1990s when the right wing began its attacks on UN corruption, the U.S. attorney in New York estimated that the mafia was making more out of waste management contracts from the city than the UN’s entire budget.
Although this media trope has become almost reflexive, it does serve a purpose. It keeps the organization on the defensive and is thus more pliable. The latest attack comes from Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the Swede retiring from the top job at the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). Her rambling, chiding, and scolding diatribe directed at Ban Ki Moon was recently leaked to the press. It immediately joined Foreign Policy’s neo-con lament that Ban had failed to live up to John Bolton’s expectations and a frustrated UN-job-seeking Norwegian diplomat’s bilious critique of the UN secretary general.
Sometimes Valid, Mostly Perverse
The Ahlenius report contains some valid criticisms of Ban’s administrative capabilities, which others have made with more balance and objectivity. But its bizarre tone and rambling nature probably raised alarms for those who read it. Indeed, if she had kept it shorter, the usual suspects in the media would have made even more of her criticisms.
However, the drift of her long and discursive report is perverse. Ban, as secretary general, refused to allow her to appoint a former deputy U.S. attorney as her deputy in the investigations unit. She had persisted in coming up with a shortlist of one white American male when Ban and the UN insisted that there had to be a woman on a shortlist of at least three. While accusing Ban of weak management, in fact she complains when he exercises management.
With reverberations of wounded amour propre, she accuses him of ignoring his senior management team of undersecretary generals in favor of his own appointees, and consistently downgrades his position by referring to him as the “chief administrative officer.” In fact, in a pattern accepted by all of her exemplar secretary generals, including Dag Hammarskjöld, the senior officials are foisted upon the UN by the Permanent Five and owe no loyalty to the organization, let alone to the incumbent secretary general. As it happens, many of these appointees have shown staunch independence from their nominating governments — but by no means all of them. So, as one senior member of Kofi Annan’s kitchen cabinet asked me, “Who would you turn to for advice: people you had chosen yourself, or effective agents of foreign powers?”
The Problematic OIOS
Nor is her own organization, the OIOS, the paragon of virtue suggested by its inflated reports of its own successes. For many conscientious staff, the OIOS has been as arrogant and intrusive as it has been incompetently bureaucratic, far more concerned with nitpicking than achieving the UN’s mission.
Boutros Boutros Ghali set up the office in 1994 in response to congressional attacks on the UN, and in particular a complaint by then-U.S. ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright that a Canadian company had bribed UN procurement staff to get contracts for air transport. The source of the allegations was a company tied to Air America, the CIA’s house airline, and perhaps not coincidentally connected as well to Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ). To appease the United States, Boutros Ghali tried to fire, but had to be content with suspending, the eight libeled UN staff. They were all eventually cleared, reinstated, and handsomely compensated by UN tribunals, as indeed was the Canadian company. The tribunal said, coyly but tellingly, that the suspensions resulted from the UN acting “under heavy outside political pressure and of the direct accusation by a business competitor against the contractor.”
In 1999, an arbitrator dismissed reports compiled by OIOS for their risible use of hearsay and slander by self-interested rivals. In 2001 when I approached OIOS about reports of UN aircraft being used for smuggling conflict diamonds, the response of its head was to start an investigation into how I had discovered this information.
Criticisms of Ban
In the end, Ban is not to blame for the parlous state of the organization that he inherited. Ahlenius harks back to a mythical gold age under Dag Hammarskjöld. But like all other incumbents in the position, Hammarskjöld’s concrete achievements were strictly limited. For all his visionary qualities, the secretary general allowed P5 appointments of his senior officials to continue and allowed the FBI and the KGB to run riot through the organization.
In fact, Ban has demonstrated some laudable independence, including his resistance to American pressure to appoint Ahlenius’s choice for deputy. On the hustings, even as John Bolton’s candidate, he expressed support for the International Criminal Court and the “Responsibility to Protect” concept, which bespeaks a kamikaze integrity in light of Bolton’s views. Ban started out reflexively pro-Israeli. But exposure to the subject has clearly been educational, and his statements on Gaza and the flotilla stand in relatively glowing contrast to the sycophantic apologia of most current world leaders.
The criticisms of Ban come down to management style, oratory, and English. To be fair, few of his predecessors came away with A-pluses on these. Dag Hammarskjöld was elected on the assumption that he was a timeserving mediocrity. Kofi Annan indeed had a numinous personality: He invited people to trust him, which is why of course his opponents worked hard to pull him down on Oil for Food. But Annan was in fact cannily circumspect in his public statements, carefully non-provocative. He benefited from a team of articulate and provocative personalities who were encouraged to speak in public. Even then there were limits — as former Irish President and Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson could testify — but, in general, they collectively magnified his standing.

Faster than the USS Liberty compensation

'Reimbursement', not justice

From Ian Williams
Middle East International 22 January 2010

Israel has confirmed to the United Nations that it is agreeing to pay $10.5 million for the 15 January 2009 destruction of UN premises in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Most of the payment goes to UNRWA, with a few hundred thousand dollars for the office of the UN Special Coordinator for the peace process, whose facilities were also trashed in an act redolent with symbolism.

At Israeli insistence, the payment is scrupulously described as ‘reimbursement’ for the ruined supplies and facilities. Since UNRWA is a voluntarily funded agency, not paid for from the UN general assessment, the ‘reimbursement’ is as much a gesture to the donor countries who have shown increasing restiveness at seeing their aid to the Palestinians regularly destroyed by the IDF, as it is to the UN – although relations between Ehud Barak and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon are perhaps more important.

Specifically excluded from the payment (carefully not labelled ‘compensation’, let alone ‘reparation’) is any money for human victims of the tragedy. Some Israelis now admit that ‘mistakes’ were made, but the Board of Inquiry, set up by Ban Ki-moon and headed by Ian Martin, a respected human rights figure, concluded that the action was part of a pattern of attacks on UN premises, schools, hospitals and warehouses.

The ‘reimbursement’ also excludes any admission of guilt by Israel: it is not to set a precedent. Indeed, it is unprecedented. It took 14 years for Israel to pay $6 million to compensate the US Navy for damage to the USS Liberty in 1967. Furthermore, Israel has not, as far as we know, compensated the Overseas Private Investment Corp, a US government-backed fund, for the $48 million owed to the Connecticut-based Morganti Group for its share of the Gaza power plant bombed by the Israelis in 2006. Nor has it compensated the European Union, whose members have been uncommonly vociferous about the costs of regular IDF flattening of their expensive aid projects.

Last January, Ban Ki-moon came, saw and was disgusted with the results of the Israeli attack and has persevered when previous UN chiefs have, in effect, let the IDF get away with successive horrors – just think of the recidivist shelling of UNIFIL’s outpost at Qana in 1996. His persistence, and relationship with Barak, the good cop of current Israeli foreign affairs compared with the Lieberman/Ayalon team officially holding the foreign portfolio, delivered the deal.
Special relationship

Barak immediately apologised to Ban for the destruction, which involved phosphorus shells. The secretary-general reported at the time: “The defence minister said to me it was a grave mistake and he took it very seriously. He assured me that extra attention will be paid to UN facilities and staff, and this will not be repeated.” Ban’s indignation was compounded because he was actually in Israel trying to secure a ceasefire when the UN premises were attacked. He could have been forgiven for thinking that someone in the IDF was trying to send him a message, not least when, as he soon complained, Israeli forces went ahead and carried out more such actions.

Barak and his ilk seem to have pushed the ‘reimbursement’ deal through. They are concerned at the erosion of the new special relationship between Israel and this UN administration. At one time, Israeli governments could rely on Washington to do the heavy lifting to bludgeon the international organisation into taciturn acquiescence. But the Obama administration, with its own issues with Netanyahu, cannot be relied upon to the same extent, so Israel has to do its own bilateral stroking.

But the greatest leverage for the UN was the detailed 184-page report of the Board of Inquiry led by Ian Martin, former special representative in East Timor. Reporting back to Ban last May, he concluded “that IDF actions involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property.” The report also called for compensation for damage to property, which was promptly endorsed by Ban.

Only a 27-page summary was published and the full report has been kept confidential. It is likely to be buried even more deeply as part of the deal. Almost certainly, Israel’s fear is that the details in there would add to the growing prospects of international criminal charges against Israeli personnel. The book was closed on using the Martin report as the basis for any further action.

The report is not being greeted as a triumph by local UN staff, who look with an understandably jaundiced eye at the damage Israel has done in Gaza. Ban may have achieved more than anyone else before in getting compensation, but many local employees, ruefully contemplating the death of colleagues and the people whose welfare they are charged to maintain, complain that it is at the cost of justice.

New Moon shining

Good Moon Rising?

Ian Williams | October 14, 2009
Foreign Policy In Focus


This year's General Assembly attracted more media attention than the United Nations usually attracts, at least since the feeding frenzy over the "oil for food" controversy. It was not just the recent stand-up routines of Libya's Qaddafi, Iran's Ahmadinejad, and Venezuela's Chavez that won the attention of the large press contingent. This time the organization really was dealing with substantive issues of global importance, and dealing with them rather than evading them with the traditional parade of orotundity. Disarmament and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, climate change, and a fair deal for the poor in the economic crisis were all on the agenda. It may not be coincidental that these issues are hardly calculated to warm a neocon heart.

So the usual suspects are sharpening their knives for Ban Ki Moon in a recent spate of conservative attacks on his lack of effectiveness. The UN general secretary had been relatively fortunate until recently. He does not have the reputation for charisma that his predecessor Kofi Annan enjoyed early on, but he also hasn't suffered the attacks that Boutros Boutros-Ghali experienced at the same point in his term. Even so, the attacks could presage the type of assault that cost Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan their chances of an additional term at the hands of respectively, Democratic and Republican administrations. As a nominee of John Bolton, Bush's UN representative, Ban might be expected to face an Obama administration veto of a second term. This is doubtful, however, since Ban's and Obama's agendas generally seem to be in close harmony. Above all, they subscribe to the Churchillian principle that jaw-jaw is better than war-war.

Yet, this U.S.-UN convergence has drawn neocon wrath down on Ban. His globalist multilateralism has not exactly endeared him to the far left either, although their concerns for the sacredness of sovereignty are unlikely to have as much effect in Washington.

No Puppet

Like almost any other secretary general, Ban stands guilty of thinking that he represents the UN rather than the right wing of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. This effrontery has generated a damning assessment in Rupert Murdoch's Times and Jacob Heilbrunn's blistering assault in Foreign Policy.

One of his detractors, a Norwegian diplomat denied the job she had wanted at the UN, described Ban in a retaliatory written-to-be-leaked memo as "charmless and spineless." In fact, he is remarkably affable and charming, and has shown strong attachment to principle — which may be one reason for the neoliberal disaffection.

Their calumny is precisely because Ban has not been just a cookie-cutter conservative puppet. If he were, he wouldn't have supported the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect while on the hustings for the UN's top job, nor would he have pushed so hard on climate change issues for two years of the Bush/Cheney duumvirate.

Ban Ki Moon has had less credit than he deserves for the prominence of the key issues at this General Assembly and the UN's relative success in tackling them, all overshadowed by the arrival of most foreigners' favorite president, Obama. Yet Ban has worked indefatigably to ensure that they were on the agenda and were supported in a practical way with commitments from world leaders. Of course, the change of administration in the White House boosted the event considerably. It is always good news when the world's only superpower decides to move in the same direction as the UN Charter, not least since it boosts the chances of successful practical outcomes. President Obama's speech pressed all the right buttons and promised a more constructive and less exploitive U.S. relationship with the organization than, for example, the Clinton administration had managed. Although Obama did warn that his administration would be looking after American interests, the decision to pay up U.S. arrears to the UN after decades of default had already sent a message.

These factual achievements have not yet succeeded in creating a positive image for Ban in the West, although the poll evidence suggests differently in the rest of the world. A recent global poll showed him to be the second most popular political figure in the world after Barack Obama. For a Korean to have high ratings in both China and Korea suggests that American audiences are missing something. U.S. misperceptions can have serious consequences, since it can detract from Ban's authority as a "secular Pope," one of the most useful tools of the office.

Learning Curve

Ban's uncollegial administrative style and, in some cases, inept appointments, have muffled his genuine achievements. All secretaries general have to be cliquish: the permanent five and major donors foist their nominees on them, and under the circumstances it is remarkable how independent of their sponsors many of them are.

But as a result, kitchen cabinets are the name of the game at the UN. In Ban's case however, it has been perceived as a very small Korean kitchen. He has appointed some very able senior officers who should really be encouraged to speak out more. Annan was no great orator and was in reality every bit as shy of controversy as Ban seems to be. But he also had a team to project his vision, who offered the benefits of controversy with deniability.

Admittedly, attacks on the secretary general go with the territory. If Ban didn't meet with the junta in Myanmar, for example, he would have been accused of doing nothing. But by making the trip, he risks accusations of countenancing tyranny — as well as the possibility of public failure. In the end, he did the right thing and went to Myanmar, where he spoke very forthrightly to the leadership. He secured the release of some political prisoners and is still pressing for the release of others. In late September, he moved from strong words in private to a public dressing down when he revealed that he'd told the Burmese prime minister "that the onus was on the Government to create the necessary conditions for credible and inclusive elections, including the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners."

That shift indicates a learning process. Part of the problem has been cultural. By temperament and culture Ban avoided public, and thus newsworthy, confrontations even though in closed rooms with leaders he can be very forthright. Although "kick and tell" is not a desirable trait in the world's arch-diplomat, the Western press disagrees. Despite his affability and accessibility to the media, Ban's refusal to deliver controversy or sound bites appears like evasiveness to the Western media. On some issues, he is in fact evasive. But his stance on Myanmar suggests that he is learning to use the bully pulpit of his office to reinforce his private messages.

Where he has shown the most rapid learning curve has been on the Middle East. As South Korean foreign minister, given the focus on Northeast Asia, the Middle East is understandably not on the top of his agenda. His initial impulse was to take the Israeli point of view. At U.S. and Israeli bidding, he purged "Arabists" at UN headquarters who upheld UN resolutions.

Exposure to Benjamin Netanyahu and the reality on the ground seem to have brought him a long way toward the common global view reflected in UN Resolution 242 on the principles for Middle East peace and other resolutions. His burying of the recent report he had commissioned on Israeli actions in Gaza is part of a long secretariat tradition of protecting Israel and suggests that he still has some way to go. Nonetheless he has gone much further than the Obama administration in characterizing Israel's settlements as illegal.

Bridging the Charisma Divide

The job of the secretary general is, by its nature, frustrating. Ban persuaded Sudan to accept peacekeepers in Darfur, but failed to secure essential Western logistics such as air support in particular. As always, subsequent scapegoating of "UN failure" obscured his initial success (not to mention Western culpability).

Recently, his staff has tried to remedy his perceived charisma deficit. They have pointed out that he has appointed more women to senior positions in the organization than ever before. There is also his work in persuading some countries and companies to set aside differences and donate flu vaccines for developing countries. These are fine achievements, but the world expects him to deliver more of the ethical dimension of a UN secretary general, even as he dips his arms in the sordid sink of realpolitik.

With the Obama administration, Ban has the best chance of any of his recent predecessors of speaking truth to power and emerging unscathed. Consider, for instance, his labeling the United States a "deadbeat" over its dues arrears this March. The recent firing of Clinton/Holbrooke protégé Peter Galbraith from the Afghan mission, whether wise or not, at least indicates a willingness to stand up to the United States.

Ban's independence is actually a boon for Washington. The secretary general, with his penchant for multilateral diplomacy, often says and does what President Obama believes but can't say publically. More straight-talking from Ban could actually help the declared foreign policy objectives of the White House.