NEW
YORK - Seemingly substantial rumors are sweeping
Washington and the UN that Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon, at President George W Bush's suggestion,
is about to appoint Burton Lynn Pascoe, currently
US ambassador to Indonesia, as head of the UN's
Department of Political Affairs.
At least
it won't be former ambassador John Bolton, and at
least Pascoe is a foreign service professional
deeply aware of the rest of the world. A
three-year spell in Taiwan and a knowledge of
Mandarin, time in Central Asia and China and you
begin to see
why
Ban could feel he could appoint such a nominee.
Indeed, one cannot help speculating how
much toing and froing there was before the White
House came up with a candidate so unusually
experienced and knowledgeable by this
administration's (or indeed others') standards and
whose Asian experience would make him acceptable
to Ban.
Even so, it does not augur well
for the United Nations or the United States to
have any American identified with the current
White House (or for that matter any previous
administration's) heading such a crucial
department, especially as one of the leading
neo-cons, ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, has
been nominated to replace Bolton.
The
advantage of the UN for rational American policy
is not simply that it provides a global legion of
blue-helmeted sepoys to carry out duties
that would swamp the US military. An independent,
globally respected body can implement resolutions,
even American-inspired ones, with some expectation
of global respect, while one that is overtly
American-dominated has far less credibility.
Indeed, the perception of following narrow
American interests that would accompany almost any
conceivable nomination from this administration
would put UN staff and peacekeepers across the
world at considerable risk.
For all the
complaints from Republicans in Congress,
Washington has always had far more say in the UN
than is good for the organization, and while on
one level such senior appointments would line
perceptions up with reality, they would reap no
benefits for anyone.
Pascoe is too
sophisticated to thank Bush publicly for his
appointment, as did Christopher Burnham, the
previous under secretary general for management.
But one cannot help thinking that he will keep his
fingers crossed when he takes the international
civil servant's oath.
A crucial test will
be how Pascoe approaches Middle Eastern issues.
Will he blindly follow Israel and the US, or
acknowledge long-established resolutions and
decisions of the UN?
If Ban thinks that
putting a US-approved appointee in such jobs will
insulate the organization from criticism, he
should consider that American
presidential-patronage nominees have been in
charge of UN management for 15 years of
unrelenting American media and Congressional
criticism of UN management
The White House
appointment of Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad to
replace Bolton as US ambassador to the UN is more
problematical. Khalilzad, currently US ambassador
to Iraq, takes his directions from Vice President
Dick Cheney, and since the beginning of the Ronald
Reagan administration has been an ardent supporter
of the various neo-con adventurist positions.
He could be considered an expert in the
"war on terror", having had so much to do with
starting the terrorism, being a major architect of
American support for the mujahideen revolt in
Afghanistan that led to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
While he almost certainly shares the
neo-cons' bedrock contempt for international law
and the UN, Khalilzad does not carry Bolton's
paleocon baggage: decades of abusive fulmination
against the international body. As a Muslim who
possesses more social and diplomatic graces than
his predecessor, he will probably do a better job
of advancing the White House agenda.
Progressives who called for the dismissal
of Bolton might have hoped he stayed. After all,
does the US really want an skilled diplomat
representing the Bush-Cheney agenda? Much better,
surely, to have an ineffective bully and blowhard
who provokes opposition than someone who has charm
and diplomatic skills. The US may now be seeing
that experiment in real time.
And of
course the unrelenting conservative attacks on the
UN were never about "mismanagement, waste and
corruption", as the media mantra had it - it was
always about policies and the temerity of the
organization and its officials in defiantly
holding onto policies that differed from
Washington's.
The rumored Pascoe
appointment is a shame since Ban was off to a good
start in reclaiming UN credibility by appointing
two women - Alicia Bercena of Mexico to the
traditionally US-held position of under secretary
general for management, and ex-foreign minister
Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania as her deputy,
replacing Mark Malloch Brown, the retiring British
incumbent.
No matter how well intentioned
he was, these commendable appointments could now
be taken as a preemptive sop to the Third World
while Ban sold the pass to the Americans on the
big one.
However, it is still early days.
Ban's "mis-speaking" on the UN's attitude to the
death penalty over Saddam Hussein's execution was
a rite of passage in which he had not yet shed his
mental position as South Korea's representative.
However, he has a considerably better chance of
transitioning into a genuine international civil
servant than Pascoe.
Ian
Williams is author of Deserter: Bush's War
on Military Families, Veterans and His Past,
Nation Books, New York.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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