THE POSTER BOY FOR BDS:

The decline of Kofi: Kofi Annan's ten years as United Nations secretary-general have left the organisation in worse shape, politically and adminstratively, than it has ever been (Alexander Casella, October 2006, Prospect)

Annan hit the ground running. His decades of UN experience meant that he needed no breaking-in period and he became operational overnight. Making his mark on the outside world, however, required more effort.

With its influential Jewish population, New York had little empathy for an organisation whose general assembly had, in 1975, adopted a resolution equating Zionism with racism. Although the resolution was repealed after the fall of the Soviet Union, the unease lingered. To address that misgiving, Annan had a trump card: his wife.

The UN spin machine missed no opportunity to advertise the fact that Annan's Swedish wife Nane was the half-niece of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi gas chambers before disappearing in 1945 in a Soviet jail. The couple basked in the reflected glory of a true hero. The Wallenberg connection sold well and combined with his quiet demeanour, natural (and well-tailored) elegance, sing-song west African accent and the overall thoughtful benevolence that he radiated, it took little time for Annan to become the darling of New York’s social scene. For a UN secretary-general, this was a first.

A full social calendar proved no impediment to Annan’s work because work was not the main prerequisite of the post. The UN charter describes the secretary-general as “the chief administrative officer of the organisation." On paper this makes him an administrator. In practice, with political decisions being taken by the security council and management decisions having to be approved by an un-cooperative general assembly, his administrative authority is practically non-existent. Thus, ultimately, the job of a UN secretary-general is to do almost nothing but to do it well. This means not aggravating member states, making the right noises, lending presence to occasions which member states feel require the cosmetics of international endorsements and ensuring that administrative excesses are either kept in line or out of the limelight. To this end, the secretary-general benefits from the support of a large staff that includes a chief of cabinet, secretaries, special assistants, speechwriters, memo drafters, protocol officers and a cohort of advisers.

Annan brought a new dimension to the function of secretary-general. Rather than doing little but doing it well, in the absence of anything to do in the political arena, he did nothing but did it very well. The little that could have been done as regards management was left undone.

Meanwhile, the UN public information apparatus went into overdrive, inflating the position of secretary-general into the equivalent of a lay papacy. The “chief administrative officer” was now depicted as the "spokesman for the poor,” the “symbol of UN ideals” and the upholder of the “moral authority” of the organisation. A fawning media fell into step. The New York Social Diary magazine, of which Annan had become a staple fare, portrayed him as “aristocratic” and his wife as “saintly”; America’s Public Broadcasting Service made him into “a representative of the highest ideals of the world community," the New York Times marvelled at his “efficiency” while Time crowned his wife the “first lady of the world.”

2001, the year when Annan's term was to end, proved his apotheosis. In the spring, governments unanimously decided to re-elect him for another five-year term despite the fact that his post would under usual rules have gone to an Asian. In autumn he received the Nobel peace prize for having “brought new life" to the UN.

Had Annan stepped down after one term, his standing would have achieved the mythical heights of a Gandhi, married to the likes of a Mother Teresa. But there was no reason to step down, and no injunction from member states to do so.

The Annan who started his second term in January 2002 was a changed man from the one Washington had chosen five years previously. “He believed he had a mission,” commented one of his close aides. Annan described that mission clearly: he had a “sacred duty” to promote peace. Administrating the secretariat clearly was now the last of his concerns. That no member state had ever anointed him with a duty that could be deemed “sacred” was beside the point. He had come to believe the image he had spun for himself.

As long as the political environment did not change, and no new demands were to be made on the organisation, he could have sustained his performance throughout a second term. But then came 9/11 and the US invasion of Iraq.

As the clouds of war loomed on the horizon, Annan felt increasingly uncomfortable. His career had been built on temporisation, conciliation and, if necessary, appeasement. Action went against his grain. This had served him well in the past but, having inflated the post of secretary-general to the dimension of a guiding light, he was now expected to take sides; his credibility demanded it. The Bush administration had chosen the road to war. The UN security council had chosen another path. Suddenly, the man whom a close assistant had described as the "ultimate fence-sitter" found the fence too narrow to sit on. As the Iraq crisis developed, Annan went on appealing for negotiations, referring to the “unique legitimacy” that only the security council could provide and asserting that war is an “issue not for one state alone.” While these words were anathema to the Bush administration, they were still not explicit enough to satisfy the opponents of the war. The man who had built a career pleasing everybody ended up satisfying nobody.

In March 2003, after it became clear that security council endorsement for an attack on Iraq could not be obtained, the US went it alone. For the UN, it was an all-time low. In the days following the invasion, Annan dropped from public view. In New York it was an open secret that he had lost his voice, and diplomatic sources confirmed that the illness had been diagnosed as psychosomatic. The man’s nerves had cracked. When he reappeared in public, a few weeks later, tranquilisers had helped him regain his voice and his composure but his hands betrayed him; they were in a state of constant agitation.

Wow, W actually drove him nuts.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2006 5:19 PM