Trump’s Chance at the UN

The contest to serve as the tenth secretary-general of the United Nations appears to be entering its decisive stretch. Secretary General António Guterres will complete his second five year term at the end of the year, and under his watch the world body is as adrift as ever, too often acting with bias, incompetence, or a mix of both. The race, even with straw polls aplenty, remains murky. The frontrunner appears to be Costa Rica’s Rebecca Grynspan.We are pulling for one candidate — the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi. Our support for Mr. Grossi is hardly a vote of confidence for the United Nations he hopes to lead. Mostly, though, we are impressed with his tenure as a nuclear watchdog. While too many bureaucrats bloviate, Mr. Grossi has exhibited diplomatic chops in arenas as volatile as Iran, Syria, and the bloody borderlands between Russia and Ukraine.Earlier this month Iran accused Mr. Grossi of being “an agent and a compliant follower of our adversary.” It is hard to think of a better recommendation. An IAEA report released this week explains that the agency is “increasingly concerned” about a uranium-enrichment plant at Isfahan, from which the mullahs have barred inspectors. The IAEA also declares that it could not aver that Iran was using nuclear energy peaceably.While those conclusions are hardly groundbreaking, they are at least a dose of honesty. Feature the election this week by the General Assembly of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Programme and Coordination. That body’s remit includes, among other areas, “human rights, women’s rights, disarmament, and counter-terrorism.” UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer likens Iran’s election to “putting Count Dracula in charge of a blood bank.”The latest entrant in the race for secretary general is the former foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Lana Nuseibeh, a development reported by our Benny Avni. Ms. Nusseubeh’s ballyhooed entry, though, appears to have floundered. The Emirati intervention in the carnage in Sudan — in the form of support to the Rapid Support Forces — is being held against her, even as she tries to distance herself from that bloodletting.That leaves Ms. Grynspan as the favorite. In a poll last week undertaken at the 15-member Security Council she received 12 votes in favor and three against. Mr. Grossi came in second, with nine votes. Ms. Grynspan is helped by her status as a woman — the UN has never been led by one — as well as the consensus that it is Latin America’s “turn” to furnish a leader, though that applies to the Argentinian Mr. Grossi. Ms. Grynspan, is a UN lifer.Ms. Grynspan’s parents fled the Holocaust, and she has a sister who lives in Israel. In 2014 she declared herself a “lifelong Zionist,” but during her time at the UN there is not a trace of resistance to the world body’s anti-Israel Weltanschauung. Eve Epstein writes in Israel HaYom that Ms. Grynspan is “part of António Guterres’s inner circle, the very system that has presided over years of rhetorical acknowledgment of anti-Israel bias.”Mr. Grossi’s trump card, so to speak, could be American support. Mr. Avni reckons that even if he secures Washington’s backing, “Russia and perhaps Communist China are likely to oppose him” — with a veto. Lame duck presidents, stymied at home, set their sights abroad. Mr. Grossi’s bid could offer Mr. Trump the golden opportunity, in the wake of the midterm setbacks, to plant a worthwhile legacy at the heart of Turtle Bay.

Trump’s Chance at the UN

Trump’s Chance at the UN

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