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Annan Faces His 'Most Difficult' Moment - UN Secretary General - Global Policy Forum Annan Faces His 'Most Difficult' Moment
By Felicity Barringer
New York Times
March 29, 2003
As Kofi Annan sees it, the time for low profiles is past. A war has erupted without sanction from the United Nations, and as its secretary general, he has to speak up about the conflict, look ahead to the future of Iraq, and keep the Nobel Prize-winning institution from reverting to its cold-war self: a bypassed, impossibly intricate bureaucracy, an off-off-Broadway stage featuring small-time diplomatic dramas.
So Mr. Annan has spent the last three weeks offering blunt observations: first about who failed whom and now about who is paying the price and what can be done about it. It is, he acknowledges, the "most difficult" moment of his four decades at the United Nations. The defiant Iraqi government, the Anglo-American coalition and the splintered Security Council itself all have been on the receiving end of his pointed reminders.
"Now I have to play an active role in this delicate next phase, where we are looking at a humanitarian situation: postconflict Iraq, and where we go from here," Mr. Annan said in an interview on Friday. He added, "And that's why I'm up front and why I'm going to be" up front. His aggressively public diplomacy is energized in part because he came late to the conclusion that this war was unavoidable. To the incredulity of at least one seasoned envoy, Mr. Annan said he did not realize until about four weeks ago that another Persian Gulf war had become inevitable. "How could he believe" that war could be avoided, said this senior diplomat, a man too experienced to attach his name anywhere near such thoughts.
But, Mr. Annan said in the interview, that was indeed what he believed. "Even with the buildup of forces, I felt it was still possible to resolve the issue peacefully," he said. "I felt the mounting pressure on the Iraqi regime and leadership, with the inspectors on the ground, conducting intrusive inspections, with appeals from peoples all over the world in the Arab region, with the pressure the U.S. was putting on, that it ought to be possible to disarm peacefully. "In peacekeeping, we have a doctrine that you sometimes have to show force in order not to use force," he said, "that you arrive in such a robust, credible manner that the other side may do what you wish to see done, without having to fight."
Then came the presentation of a proposed British-American-Spanish resolution effectively authorizing war, and Mr. Annan said he began to wonder: "Can we turn this thing around? Can we stop this train?" The answer was no. That was also the answer to his next, urgent question: whatever happens, can the Security Council unite? And now no has become Mr. Annan's answer to the question: should I still keep a low profile?
All sides are lashing back. Charles Krauthammer, the conservative Washington Post columnist, used the words "disgusting" and "deeply offensive" to describe Mr. Annan's remarks about "humanitarian casualties" in Iraq, particularly in a Baghdad marketplace. Last week at least one Muslim leader, the mercurial prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, called on him to resign for failing to stop the war. "He is not a free agent," the Malaysian leader said.
As Richard C. Holbrooke, the United States ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, observed, "Because of his quiet charisma and great political and personal skills, he has become the most powerful and best-known S.G. since at least Dag Hammarskjold. This puts him under much greater scrutiny and pressure. Recently, he has been pulled in two different directions." Mr. Holbrooke added, "What he's trying to do, and it's very hard, is to satisfy both constituencies at the same time and protect the long-term interests of the organization.
"The risk he runs is clear: that he will end up satisfying no one." Mr. Annan's willingness to play an up-front role has been episodic. That fact is odd for some, since, on the public stage, he is something of a diplomatic rock star — or, as one of his longtime acquaintances calls him, a "secular pope."
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