Kofi to World: Thank Us For Iraq!

I’m not quite sure how Kofi Annan managed to write this column and not get immediately struck by lightning.

Here’s the whole piece summed up in one sentence: You may now thank the UN for the Iraq vote.

No, really. I’m not kidding here at all. Annan’s taking credit for it.

Don’t believe me? Have a read.

No one can fail to have been moved by the Iraqis’ display of courage at the polls. The United Nations is proud of the assistance it was able to give them, both in developing the political base for elections and in the technical preparations. We helped to draft the electoral law and to form the Independent Electoral Commission, which ran the elections. A U.N. electoral team of more than 50 staff members in Baghdad, Amman and New York supported the commission. The United Nations trained the commission’s members and several hundred other electoral workers, who in turn trained thousands more, and we have advised and supported them throughout the process.

Not a single mention of the United States or other Coalition members. Not a single mention of the thousands of Iraqi soliders and police officers who stood guard and ensured the security of the election. Not a single mention of the Iraqis who risked their lives to work the polls.

Just lots and lots of self-loving for the UN and their 50 whole election workers not all of whom, you will note, were actually in Iraq during the election.

Oh, but it’s better. It appears that the UN has more to do!

I believe we can also help in the next stage: building a constitution. There, too, our help must be both political and technical. Politically, my special representative, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, is engaged in efforts to reach out to those groups — mainly Sunni Arabs — that stayed away from the elections but are willing to pursue their goals through peaceful negotiation and dialogue.

Success in this effort is crucial. Some groups are bitterly resentful of the occupation and believe that they have been excluded from the political process. Every effort must be made to bring them in. The wider the spectrum of Iraqis that can be brought into the tent, the greater the chance of success.

I’m not sure how much more of an effort ought to be made to include people who flatly refused to participate after the months of outright begging the US and others did to get the Sunni involved. Now they’re on the outside looking in and they’re not happy about having to be brought in by the people they spent a few decades torturing and killing. They had an opportunity and they gave it away. Now they’re gong to get another chance to participate, but it sure as hell won’t be the chance they had before January 30th. And that’s just fine, to my thinking.

But hey, if the UN wants to spend its time convincing the disgruntled to get gruntled again, they’re welcome to do so. At least they’re involved in a way that’s won’t be tripping over the folks who realy are doing the hard and necessary work.

Or maybe they won’t be that out of the way.

The new constitution will, of course, be an Iraqi constitution, and Iraqis will decide its shape. But if they ask for advice — and I believe that they will — we do have considerable knowledge and experience to draw on.

Really? Considerable knowledge and experience in writing a working democratic constitution?

When, pray tell, did this happen? Can anyone tell me the last time the UN helped create a democratic country anywhere because I sure as hell can’t remember it happening. In fact, I sem to recall the UN as being pretty good at being a hindrance to democracy in general and fairly friendly to dictatorships and tyranny. But maybe that’s me.

Look, were I the Iraqis, I’d stay as far from the UN as I could get. If I really wanted advice on writing a solid constitution, I’d ask the US and the French (yes, I know I’m giving props to French). After all, they have the two oldest Constitutional Republics in the world so they mst have a fairly good idea what makes for a lasting democratic system of government. Then I’d ask the Afghan government how things are coming along there and learn from some of their successes in bringing disparate groups together in a working government.

But I wouldn’t go running to the UN. Not in a million years.

Kofi saves the best for last, though. Based on this last sentence, I can guarantee that Kofi Annan wins the award for the Biggest Brass Balls of the Week.

We have a mandate from the Security Council to take the lead in bringing that support together, and we intend to do it.

Yep. A mandate. From the Security Council. To take the lead.

Someone remind me again why we’re contributing even a penny to the UN?

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Category: Our Foreign Policy