Annan’s First Visit to Iraq

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The New York Sun

In pre-war visits to Iraq, Secretary-General Annan conferred international legitimacy on Saddam Hussein. This weekend, after suffering a blow to his own prestige, Mr. Annan finally graced post-Saddam Iraq with his presence, paying a brief but highly publicized visit to Baghdad.


Mr. Annan’s incursion followed an Iraqi visit by the secretary general of the Arab League, Amre Moussa, who until now has also been largely absent from the Iraqi scene. In the world’s political stock market, these visits signal that the smart money now puts a “buy” sign on Iraq.


After the ouster of Saddam, America and its allies hoped United Nations involvement would blunt the hostility of those opposed to the enterprise of Middle East change. Turtle Bay, however, was a different place then.


Only few dared to snicker back in 2003 when Mr. Annan and other officials habitually used terms like “international legitimacy” and “moral authority” to describe their organization. Those descriptions have now been replaced by desperate calls for healing a bankrupt and corrupt United Nations.


Either way, any hope for a significant U.N. role in Iraq was lost in August 2003, when a terrorist blew up the U.N. Baghdad headquarters, killing 21 in the process, including Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil. A traumatized United Nations withdrew from the country, only to return with a tiny staff and less ambitious hopes for influence.


A Pakistani diplomat named by Mr. Annan a year after the bombing to be his point man in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, headed a small group of officials who huddled inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, paralyzed by security concerns. As Iraqi citizens and American troops put their lives on the line, and as the country marked significant political successes such as last winter’s parliamentary elections, many in the mission were busy watching the historic India-Pakistan cricket match on satellite television in the U.N. compound’s basement.


Mr. Qazi made political blunders initially, as when he arrived for a crucial meeting with the Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, with an Urdu to Farsi interpreter at his side. Slighted by being considered more Farsi than Arab, the Iraqi religious icon signaled he would decline to see Mr. Qazi in the future.


Mr. Qazi has conferred with top Iraqi politicians since, and U.N. election experts played a minor role in advising about some technical aspects of running national polls. The organization’s involvement was nevertheless seen as marginal.


“We have been here all along,” Mr. Annan said Saturday after meeting with Prime Minister Al-Jafari, answering a reporter who described the U.N. involvement in the country as “rather late.” The United Nations also plans to be even more involved now, the secretary-general protested.


Last week, however, Mr. Annan wrote Secretary of State Rice and the British foreign minister, Jack Straw, that the United Nations could not extend its presence beyond Baghdad unless Britain or America dedicated aircraft for the travel needs of Mr. Qazi’s mission. Washington wants the United Nations to be more involved, and it urged Mr. Annan to visit Iraq. Mr. Annan, meanwhile, continues to raise the stakes by asking for more assets in return.


“We need the help of also Arab countries beyond Iraq who have relations with the Sunni Arabs, and we’ve been engaging them,” America’s ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, told PBS’s “NewsHour” in October.


The Arab League has also been largely absent in Iraq. Some in Washington now advocate a far-reaching involvement for the organization. Mr. Moussa spent a few days in Baghdad, meeting several of the top political parties in the country. He came up with an initiative, supported by Ms. Rice, for a peace conference among Iraqi factions.


Like the United Nations, however, the Arab League is adrift and weakened these days. Top Arab leaders do not even bother to attend its meetings anymore, seeing the League as a relic of bygone days when Mr. Moussa’s mentor, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, fired up the imagination of Baathists and others in the region with dreams of victorious Pan-Arabism.


Messrs. Annan and Moussa, who have fought tooth and nail to avert regime change in Iraq, finally realize that pouting on the sidelines does little for their prestige. The forces they represent might now finally sense that the change they have so opposed finally has begun to gel. Their time to jump on the bandwagon has come.


The New York Sun

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