As the race for Kofi Annan’s seat heats up, it is time for American policymakers to consider who and what will help to shape the next secretary-general’s policies and reform ideas for the ailing United Nations.

Some are pushing President Clinton to campaign to become secretary-general. It may be wise, however, for Washington to lobby for an American it trusts – someone in the mold of Senator Lieberman, say, or Paul Wolfowitz, or Jeane Kirkpatrick – for the position of deputy secretary-general.

There is a tacit agreement at the United Nations that the secretary-general comes from a country not otherwise vying for global or regional leadership. There is also a quota system. How about a woman? The frontrunner is President Vike-Freiberga of Latvia. My favorite is the jailed Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, but how could she lead an organization that calls her country Myanmar at the insistence of an oppressive regime?

Anyway, Turtle Bay is more interested in regional quotas. “It is general consensus among United Nations members that it is Asia’s turn,” South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, told me during a recent Turtle Bay visit. He is rumored to be interested in Mr. Annan’s job himself, but was careful, of course, not to say he is running, since U.N. etiquette forbids publicly declaring one’s candidacy.

In a Byzantine electoral system, the running of the secretariat consists of backroom deal-making between candidates and their champions in world capitals. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council then have the final say. “It is going to be a 2 1/2 way deal: America, China, and Russia,” Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador, Munir Akram, told me.

For now, Russia is only interested in blocking candidates from its former vassal states. Several Eastern Europeans in addition to Ms. Vike-Freiberga are in the running anyway, including President Kwasniewski of Poland. Russia is aided by China, which, with its newfound economic prowess, is flexing its global muscles and insists the next secretary-general should be Asian.

Besides South Korea, Thailand has been pulling for one of its former prime ministers, Surakiart Sathirathai, while Sri Lanka put forth a perennial diplomat, Jayantha Dhanapala. The U.N Development Program’s chief, Kemal Dervis, is said to be a contender, but after Turkey’s push to join the European Union, it will be tough for him to claim his homeland is in Asia. China’s U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, recently told me there is no agreement yet on a candidate. China will surely promote a candidate who sympathizes with Beijing’s policies, making compromise with America a neat trick.

“We don’t recognize the principle of geographic rotation,” America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, told State Department reporters last week, saying instead he will support “the best qualified individual.” Breaking with tradition – and stretching Mr. Annan’s lame duck status – Mr. Bolton also said the selection process should be completed by this summer to allow the next leader “an opportunity to have a kind of transition period.”

Until now, America has been interested in reforming Turtle Bay internally, an effort led by the undersecretary general for management and a former Bush aide, Christopher Burnham. Traditionally, America has been less interested in the secretariat’s policy-making process. Using its leverage only when absolutely necessary, America left the political department to its British ally. The political department was lost, however, after an ally of George Soros, Mark Malloch Brown, a British citizen, became chief of staff. Mr. Malloch Brown is now rumored to vie for the position of deputy secretary-general.

This position originally was created in 1998 by Mr. Annan, who was interested in becoming the diplomatic equivalent of a rock star and picked the Canadian Louise Frechette to manage the mundane task of running the United Nations. She was so ineffective that Paul Volcker recommended in one of his oil-for-food reports the creation of a new position of chief operating officer, forgetting that this was the deputy’s job description.

Her failure, however, should not discourage policy-makers. The Bush administration could put its stamp on the United Nations by accepting a compromise candidate for secretary-general while insisting that an American with stature run as a mate for the deputy position. An American in that position could finally cure Turtle Bay of its worst disease: the notion that rather than reflect the world’s power structure, the U.N. should balance it by opposing American ideals.