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Terrorism & Security
posted June 9, 2006 at 11:50 a.m.

US, UN: can this 'unhappy marriage' be saved?

Latest war of words breaks out as reform deadline looms.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

A speech this week by the United Nations' deputy secretary general has exacerbated the "simmering tensions" between the UN and the US, but has also won the praise of many foreign commentators who said it was time to challenge the Bush administration's position on the UN. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Secretary-General Kofi Annan's deputy, Mark Malloch Brown, on Tuesday accused the US of working constructively with the UN in private, but publicly abandoning the UN in the face of criticism from right-wing politicians and media.

"Americans complain about the UN's bureaucracy, weak decision-making, the lack of accountable modern management structures and the political divisions of the General Assembly here in New York. And my response is: 'Guilty on all counts'." But he said this was because the US had "not stuck with its project - its professed wish to have a strong, effective United Nations - in a systematic way".
"In the eyes of the rest of the world, US commitment tends to ebb much more than it flows. In recent years, the ... divisive issue of Iraq and the big stick of financial withholding have come to define an unhappy marriage." He said this was unfair because the US was constructively engaged with the UN. "But that is not well known or understood, in part because much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as [the radio host] Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."

Reuters reported Wednesday that Mr. Malloch Brown said the speech was a " sincere and constructive critique of US policy toward the UN by a friend and admirer."


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"The prevailing practice of seeking to use the UN almost by stealth as a diplomatic tool while failing to stand up for it against its domestic critics is simply not sustainable," Malloch Brown told a New York political conference ... By "stealth diplomacy," Malloch Brown said he meant Washington's practice of looking for UN support to deal with global hot spots without letting the US heartland know, while allowing conservative UN-bashers to attack the world body without offering any defense.

The BBC reported Thursday that US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton reacted angrily to Malloch Brown's speech, calling it " probably the most severe political mistake that any high official of the UN has made in that period," and accused Malloch Brown of having a "a condescending, patronizing tone about the American people." Mr. Bolton had demanded Wednesday that Mr. Annan repudiate his deputy's comments. The Washington Post reported, however, that Annan refused to do so, a move that further infuriated Bolton.

"It is illegitimate for an international civil servant to criticize what he thinks are the inadequacies of the citizens of a member government," Bolton said.
"Maybe it's fashionable in some circles to look down on middle America and to say that they don't get the complexities of the world and they don't have the benefit of continental educations and they're deficient in so many ways," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Malloch Brown's speech comes at a critical moment for the UN and the US, as a June 30 deadline looms for management reforms sought by Washington. The US, and other nations such as Japan, have threatened to cut off funds by the end of this month if reforms are not in place. In an editorial Friday, the Financial Times argues that Malloch Brown's comments were " a model of reasoned diplomacy" and that similar comments were made at the conference by a US Republican senator, Jim Leach of Iowa. So why, the editorial asks, was Bolton so annoyed?

It is hard to avoid the suspicion that Mr. Bolton saw it as an opportunity to whip up UN-phobia in Congress, which is unlikely to ratify his ambassadorial position when it expires in January. But Mr Bolton needs no second invitation. As this newspaper has argued and as sceptics on Capitol Hill have asserted, Mr Bolton is an inappropriate person to carry out the skilful diplomacy that is needed to push through a much-needed overhaul of the UN ...
George W. Bush has made no secret of his disdain for the UN – not least in having proposed Mr Bolton as US ambassador. Yet quietly and out of earshot of middle America's favorite talk radio channels, even the Bush administration has found the UN useful. Last year US government auditors pointed out that UN peacekeepers in Haiti cost half the amount of their US predecessors and were doing just as good a job. Since the US contributes a quarter of the UN budget, the Haiti operation amounted to an eighth of the cost of the unilateral alternative. Mr Bolton might be loath to admit that doing things together can sometimes be more effective than doing it alone. But others must be allowed to make this case without getting hit by a meteorite.

An editorial in the Washington Times, however, writes that Malloch Brown's comments show an " an abysmally poor understanding of how America works."

The Briton Mr. Brown has lived here long enough. He should know what a free press looks and sounds like. Maybe European countries could tolerate this type of scorn for the people whom public servants and their international counterparts are supposed to serve. But not in the United States. Right now, this is an unprecedented standoff. A spokesman for Mr. Annan said his boss stands by the remarks. It's not clear where we go from here. What is much clearer is this: In America, the public tells the government what to do, not the other way around. We're sorry that Mr. Brown is unable to accept that fact. We're not sorry that he revealed his elitist contempt for the public, however.

Writer, historian and political analyst Ilana Bet-Il, writing in the Guardian's "Comment is free" opinion section, says that both parties are to blame – the UN for perpetuating a "highly inefficient" structure that is overly politicized, and the US for pursuing a unilateralism that ignores the world if it doesn't get its own way, often to its own detriment. Since the US does not want to go down a path that leads to reforming the Security Council, where it "may end up a loser" in any meaningful restructuring, it is again trying to use money as a way to force change.

Malloch Brown has now called the US bluff: either pay up or shut up – since it is the UN's very existence which is at stake. Kofi Annan, by refusing to repudiate his words, has effectively backed him up. Since they are both leaving office at the end of the year, they have nothing to lose. But the US, for all Bolton's bluster, has everything to lose and the UN has everything to gain: if it hounds the two, the US will appear even more vindictive and bullying than usual; if it does not pay up and the UN grinds to a halt, it will be blamed by most other nations for being a mean and petulant super-power; and if it pays up it has been shamed into the act. Game and set to Mark Malloch Brown - but the match is not over.