Secretary-General Annan overcame his initial instincts this weekend and deserves some praise for his decision to forego a trip to Iran, where he was scheduled to meet President Ahmadinejad and other top mullahs.

Presumably, Mr. Annan was hoping to re-create a glorious 1998 moment when he returned from Baghdad, Iraq, after negotiating a compromise with Saddam Hussein that averted an American bombing campaign. To the cheers of United Nations staff awaiting him in the lobby, Mr. Annan then announced he could “do business” with Saddam.

Now, on the eve of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s November 26 board of directors meeting, some of Mr. Annan’s advisers hoped he would be able to announce in Tehran, Iran, that the mullahs have agreed to return to the negotiating table with the Europeans. Indeed, after Mr. Annan announced the cancellation of his trip, the Iranians yesterday began backtracking and asking for European talks.

Iran can hope for no better outcome than to go back to the fruitless diplomatic maneuvering that has proved so helpful in advancing its quest for nuclear weapons. Mr. Annan, meanwhile, seemed eager to reassume the mantle of the world’s premier diplomat.

From a public relations point of view, however, the trip was doomed from the start. Although planned weeks in advance, the announcement that Mr. Annan was scheduled to visit Tehran during his upcoming Middle East swing was made the day after Mr. Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

A photo-op in Tehran would look like a handshake with Hitler upon the publication of “Mein Kampf.” Last week, incidentally, the General Assembly passed an unprecedented resolution calling on member states and the secretary-general to set up programs to teach the lesson of the Holocaust.

Neville Chamberlain, anyone?

Mr. Annan said he was “dismayed” at the Iranian president’s remarks and vowed to highlight the “Middle East peace process” in his Tehran visit.That was no comfort to anyone concerned about the combination of an Iranian intent to do away with Israel with the possibility that its clerics would obtain the nuclear means to do so.

“This is a bad idea,” Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, told me. “The message this trip carries is of business as usual.” Mr. Gillerman pleaded with Mr. Annan to cancel the trip, and soon enough he was joined by others.

The State Department, where some may have harbored the same hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran, did not come out calling for Mr. Annan to cancel. America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, told me, however, “We hope the secretary-general will take all the factors into account in considering whether he is going to undertake that trip.” Late last week, Mr. Bolton told the Anti-Defamation League that the Iranian’s remarks amounted to a “threat of a second Holocaust.” Some in Congress, meanwhile, circulated a resolution calling for Iran’s ouster from the United Nations.

Several of Mr. Annan’s own advisers also urged him to forego the trip, trying to drown out those voices on the inside that were still itching for “engagement.” But the decisive advice came from Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat of California, who is an intimate family friend of the Annans and a Holocaust survivor. Mr. Lantos sent a scathing letter to Mr. Annan, saying it would be “absolutely inappropriate for you to lend the prestige of your office” to the “legitimization of a leader of such foul sentiments and goals.”

By Thursday afternoon, Mr. Annan started signaling a change of mind. “You are right that Congressman Lantos is a good friend of mine,” he told me. Still clinging to his hope for diplomacy, Mr. Annan added, “We need to engage people and governments.” He let on, nevertheless, that his itinerary was still being “refined.”

Then, on Friday morning, a U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, announced that “the secretary-general and the Iranian government have mutually agreed that this is not an appropriate time “to go to Tehran.” In light of the ongoing controversy, it would have been difficult to advance the agenda that he had wanted to discuss with the Iranian leadership,” the statement said.

In 1998, when he went to save Saddam from isolation, Mr. Annan was at the top of his game, a beloved world figure. Since then, the extent of the “business” the United Nations under Mr. Annan did with Iraq has been extensively documented. As a result, Mr. Annan is now vulnerable to pressures – which in this case proved to be a very good thing.