Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 5 2005 (IPS) — As the United Nations gets ready to mark its 60th anniversary at a summit meeting of world leaders next month, the United States may be heading towards a political confrontation course with the world body.

“Clearly, these are not the best of times for U.S.-U.N. relations,” says a Third World diplomat, citing a rash of new developments – mostly undermining the United Nations.

The world body has been at the receiving end of a continuous stream of political invective from right-wing critics in the United States who accuse the organisation of inefficiency and mismanagement.

A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June has threatened a partial cut-off of funds to the United Nations, although Pres. George W. Bush has vowed to veto it when it arrives in the White House.

But Bush, endearing himself to right-wing neoconservatives in his corner, has named a vociferous critic of the world body, John Bolton, as U.S. ambassador – a man who has publicly expressed his disdain for the United Nations and all what it stands for.

On Friday, there were unconfirmed reports that the Bush administration is considering denying a visa to the new Iranian president, barring him from the U.N. summit next month.

“I think you raise serious issues, very serious issues,” says Jim Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, a New York-based think tank that closely tracks day-to-day political developments in the world body.

“I think these are not uniquely damaging, but part of a longer-term, strained relationship that is rooted in the structural tension between the superpower and the multilateral institution,” Paul told IPS.

The superpower wants to do whatever it wants, he said, while the United Nations appears as a restraint (both through law and through the will of 190 other states).

“Those who thought that the end of the Cold War and the standoff between two superpowers (the United States and the then-Soviet Union) would enhance the role of the United Nations were seriously mistaken. The single superpower may be even more negative,” he added.

When he announced Bolton’s appointment early this week, Bush defied an overwhelming majority of critics, including some of his own party loyalists. But he circumvented opposition in the U.S. Senate by using his prerogative to make an appointment while the legislative body was in recess – which will keep Bolton as head of the U.S. mission to the United Nations until January 2007.

According to Sen. Ted Kennedy, a member of the opposition Democratic Party, the “devious maneuver” to appoint Bolton “further darkens the cloud over Bolton’s credibility at the United Nations.”

A politically conservative right-winger, Bolton has been aggressive in his dealings with countries such as Iran and North Korea, and on issues such as arms control, nuclear non-proliferation and the United Nations itself.

Perhaps the best – and most sarcastic – comment came from the editorial desk of the New York Times, which said last week: “If there’s a positive side to President Bush’s appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations yesterday, it’s that as long as Mr. Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else.”

Since Bolton was once quoted as saying that the United Nations would not miss very much if 10 of its 39 floors were taken out, it was logical that his now-infamous comment would come up for more scrutiny now that he is in and out of the headquarters building on a daily basis.

At a press conference last week, one of the reporters asked the U.N. spokesman whether Secretary-General Kofi Annan, at his first meeting with Bolton, had inquired whether the new U.S. envoy would give an assurance he would not take out the 10 floors in the building. The question, of course, was dripping with sarcasm.

“The Secretary-General received Mr Bolton’s credentials today,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric responded, “He is now officially the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, and I think we will refrain from doing ‘colour’ commentary on Mr. Bolton’s activities, now that he works here.”

Paul of the Global Policy Forum says the nomination of Bolton puts at the head of the U.S. mission a person with a hostile view towards the United Nations.

“No one with such views has ever been named to this post before. It is like posting a militant atheist as ambassador to the Vatican! There is certainly some very negative symbolism involved. But will his presence change things dramatically? That is not clear,” he added.

Paul also said that Bolton will be taking instructions from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “And we have to remember that he evidently wants to stay involved in the Washington battles and so he may not even be in New York as much as his predecessors. It remains to be seen whether something new and uniquely dangerous will happen,” he added.

At the Washington end, the U.S. House of Representatives has already passed a bill to withhold half of the mandatory U.S. dues to the United Nations – about 220 million dollars out of a total of 440 million dollars per year – if the world body did not comply with some 46 requirements laid down in the new legislation, including greater financial transparency and more oversight bodies.

Meanwhile, the threat of another U.S.-U.N. confrontation is looming on the political horizon. The Bush administration may deny a visa to the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad who is expected to address the U.N. summit of world leaders Sep. 14-16.

According to press reports in the U.S. media, the new president is said to have been one of the student leaders who took over the U.S. embassy in Teheran in 1979 just after the Islamic Revolution following the ouster of the strongly pro-Washington Shah of Iran.

Officially, neither the Bush administration nor the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has confirmed that Ahmadi-Nejad was one of the students who held U.S. embassy officials as hostages after the siege. The Iranians have also said the new president was not involved in the takeover of the U.S. embassy.

“But still, the Bush administration could use this rumour as an pretext to deny him a visa to enter the United States for the upcoming summit, thereby triggering another political confrontation with the United Nations,” says a senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States has always maintained that it has a legitimate right to deny a visa (even if the person is on an official visit to the United Nations) if he or she is deemed a threat to the “national security” of the country.

But U.N. spokesman Dujarric told reporters Friday: “The host country agreement (between the United Nations and the United States) calls on the United States not to impose any impediment to the travel to the United Nations of any representative of a member state on official business.”

Still, the former head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the late Yasser Arafat, was barred from coming to New York to address the General Assembly back in 1988.

As a result, the General Assembly decided to convene in Geneva that year purely to listen to Arafat’s address. That was considered a resounding slap in the face to the United States.

Although the U.S. government constantly chafes at the United Nations, it also needs the United Nations, Paul said.

“For all the blows it has received, the United Nations has unique legitimacy and Washington tries to use that to its own advantage,” he added. If the United Nations were to collapse, he argued, another one would have to be invented.

The message is clear, said Paul: “Washington tries to bend the United Nations to its purposes, through threats and blackmail, but not to break the institution.”