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Phyllis Bennis: Annan's Roots are Key to his Success Annan's Roots are Key to his Success
by Phyllis Bennis
Unedited version of a text that appeared in the Baltimore Sun
(March 22, 1998)
Kofi Annan gets a lot of press for being polite to Washington policymakers. The reality is that the United Nations secretary-general is a far tougher diplomat, and significantly more accountable to the developing countries of the third world, than he gets credit for. Even when Annan is forced to give in to U.S. pressure, he demands –and gets-- something in return. In Geneva this week, Annan for the first time cited the U.S. version, rather than the official UN language, of what Iraq must do to end the economic sanctions. (Washington claims that Iraq must implement a whole range of demands, including reparations, returning Kuwaiti prisoners, and more, while the UN resolution links the sanctions only to allowing inspections and destroying Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.)But in what appears to be a quid pro quo, the UN chief won silent acquiescence for his Middle East peace mission that would likely have sparked harsh U.S. condemnation and efforts at obstruction only a few weeks ago. Annan said he is going to the region “to listen,” but the very fact of his high-profile visit to Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere at a time of serious stalemate in the peace process, stands as a direct challenge to Washington’s effort to exclude all other international players from Middle East diplomacy.
There is little question that Annan's tactical skill was not solely responsible for the UN-Iraq agreement that averted (at least for the moment) a campaign of brutal U.S. airstrikes against Iraq. The ultimate decisions were made in Washington and Baghdad.
But it was Kofi Annan who pulled it off. And whatever future complications may ensue, the pragmatic Ghanaian succeeded where few others might have had a chance. Much of his success could be traced to exactly the qualities that Annan's Washington supporters apparently missed when he was presented as the U.S. favorite to replace the supposedly anti-reform Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Annan was supposed to be "hand-picked" by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Within a month after taking office in early 1997, he "captivated" Washington; he "dazzled" Western leaders at the Davos economic summit; and. he had a celebrated coffee with Jesse Helms. Beltway policymakers assumed his low-key style reflected a malleable, soft, generally pro-U.S. core. If Annan were white, he would have been dubbed Washington's "golden boy."
But Kofi Annan is black, and Washington was wrong. When Annan returned from his Baghdad triumph to brief the UN press corps, he mentioned something few journalists included in their stories. Asked to describe Saddam Hussein during their extensive one-on-one meeting, the soft-spoken Annan mentioned in passing that the Iraqi leader "never raised his voice." It was only a passing thought, but it was far from insignificant.
And there was more. Annan's real success in Baghdad -- as well as the breadth of his global popularity -- are rooted in those very features that Jesse Helms finds most distasteful. Kofi Annan is African, he is black, he is a man of the global South, and despite Madeleine Albright's great expectations, he clearly does not believe that Washington is always right. He does indeed speak softly -- but the big diplomatic stick he carried to Baghdad was not simply the armada of U.S. aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines; it was also his understanding, rooted in his own history, of how issues of power, persuasion and humiliation succeed or fail in the South. He understood the necessity of treating the Iraqi leadership -- despite their violations of UN resolutions -- with respect. Annan convinced Saddam Hussein, face to face, that the Iraqi leader had to abandon his demand for a time limit on inspections of his most secret sites. The UN chief was able to reach agreement, and win Hussein's signature by, among other things, including in the final language the UN's written commitment to "respect the sovereignty ... of Iraq."
Now in theory, everything the United Nations is and does, from the Charter down to the most technical resolution, is supposed to be rooted in the twin (if sometimes contradictory) pillars of human rights and national sovereignty for member states. But Annan understood Saddam Hussein's, and Iraq's, political-cultural need for an explicit UN commitment to respect Iraq as the trade-off for accepting thoroughly humiliating conditions. Despite his three decades in largely Northern-dominated provinces of the UN, Annan retains an understanding of the magnitude of national honor, largely rooted in the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and 60s in Africa, the Arab world, parts of Asia and elsewhere in the South. While Iraq's sovereignty should not be a contentious issue, it is doubtful that a Northern-oriented secretary-general, whatever his or her actual country of origin, would have grasped the pivotal necessity of including that language to win Baghdad's agreement.
In travelling to Baghdad to meet personally with Saddam Hussein, and in committing the UN and its member states to respect Iraq as a nation, despite the devastating sanctions and intrusive inspection regimes imposed on it, Annan positioned his organization back at center stage of Middle East crisis management. Further, by requesting "advice" and "guidance" from, but not necessarily unanimous prior approval by, the Security Council, the SG defended the breadth and coherence of the world organization. Challenging U.S. efforts to keep the Iraq crisis within the Northern-dominated Security Council, in which U.S., French, British, Russian and Chinese veto power distorts any semblance of democracy, Annan’s initiative reminded everyone that the UN organization as a whole has a role to play.
It was that renewed assertion of UN centrality, as much as the diversion of a punishing military strike, that won Annan international acclaim. Governments throughout the Arab world, as well as across Africa, Asia, Latin America and much of the North as well, welcomed the diplomatic solution to the crisis. The Arab street turned from burning American flags to hailing Kofi Annan.
But in Washington, wannabe warriors in the Clinton administration were frustrated by Iraq's last-minute reprieve from bombing. Republican fury mounted, largely driven by the same factors that made Annan a hero in much of the rest of the world: the U.S. war drive, and the nuclear-armed armada of the most powerful nation on earth, had been turned aside by a feat of careful, principled diplomacy carried out by a soft-spoken black African once thought to be squarely in Washington's pocket. Whether he believed it or not, Annan was conscious enough of Washington power-brokering to express gratitude for the U.S. and British war maneuvers that, he claimed, had strengthened his diplomatic efforts. But despite that concession, for Jesse Helms and Trent Lott the picture of Annan's tumultuous hero's welcome at UN headquarters (the SG had refused to provide President Clinton with a detailed briefing until he could provide the information equally to the entire Security Council) was not a pretty sight.
It is clear that public opposition to a U.S. military strike -- at home and abroad -- played a key role in Clinton's decision to accept the Annan-brokered UN-Iraqi Memorandum of Understanding. The Ohio State "town meeting" fiasco demonstrated the paucity of public support for a military strike, and the inability of the administration's spokespeople to adequately respond to serious questions and challenges. U.S. opposition came from left and right, from blacks, Arab-Americans, whites and others, from across the political spectrum. Black community opposition to U.S. military attacks, and support for UN primacy in the crisis, did not emerge simply because Kofi Annan is black. But the symbolism of a black man standing against U.S. military power and for international diplomacy remains potent. It is not insignificant that the earliest and strongest congressional opposition came from black members of the Progressive Caucus. John Conyers, Cynthia McKinney, Jesse Jackson, Jr. -- these were the initial leading voices. Theirs were the voices who went beyond cautious procedural demands for congressional approval of any bombing, to state substantive opposition to U.S. military strikes. Theirs were also the voices applauding the UN's renewed legitimacy and centrality.
It wasn't, of course, only because Kofi Annan is black. Annan's success in Baghdad wasn't solely because he's black either. But that fact may not be irrelevant. And the success of the first black African secretary-general bodes well for future efforts to transform the United Nations: from Jesse Helms’ goal of a non-existent UN, and from Madeleine Albright’s vision of the UN as a tool of Washington's foreign policy -- to what Kofi Annan’s mission to Baghdad represents: a truly global United Nations standing up, when necessary, not only to petty dictators but to the most powerful nations on earth.
Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, and author of Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN
