Annan's Wasted Trip to Iran

Shock of shocks. Annan got nothing from Iran and Iran got a 'positive' trip bit for their internal propaganda machine.

As well as seeking Iran's cooperation with UN Security Council demands that it cease its uranium enrichment program, Annan lightly criticized Iran's Holocaust exhibit, an art contest in Tehran doubting the deaths of six million Jews in World War II that is still on public display. Though he could have seen the exhibit for himself in his two-day stay, a spokesman offered that "From what he heard, he would find them pretty distasteful, as he did the Danish cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad, which he strongly condemned at the time."

But Annan was sent away with less than zero, for Ahmadinjead reiterated his demands that negotiations precede any enrichment and defended the exhibit. Not only did the Iranian president refuse to participate in Annan's post-meeting press conference, he followed it by announcing that Iran will host a conference bringing into question the Holocaust.

This is why Iran lauded Kofi Annan's two-day visit as "positive". Iran ceded nothing and in the process got a smile and a handshake from the leader of the world body that can determine how difficult Iran's path to nuclear weapons will be.

I'm still baffled by the Iranian's fascination with the Holocaust. It's almost silly how foolish they look to the vast majority of the world for the denials that they continually put forward that have no basis in history. And an exhibit for the deniers is just silly. Of course, Annan's response was weak kneed at best. Pretty much what you expect from a UN official.

The continued failures of the UN in just about every security context is making it truly irrelevant.

The casual contempt with which Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rejected Kofi Annan's attempt to mediate in the stand-off over Teheran's nuclear ambitions is alarming. There was a time when the UN Secretary General was a figure of genuine authority. No longer.

Mr Annan's personal standing has, of course, been diminished by his failure either to root out corruption or to introduce meaningful reforms. But the malaise runs deeper. The UN is in danger of becoming an expensive irrelevance, feebly led and increasingly ill-fitted for the job of policing the international community.

In Darfur, the Security Council last week resolved to create a peacekeeping force some 20,000 strong. But the Sudanese government has rejected such intervention as "imperialism" and will not accept the force.

Sadly the structure of the UN is it's primary fault. The security council has become irrelevant due to the perpetual stalemate of the veto powered countries. China and Russia seem to be perpetually on the "talk-more-act-less" bandwagon that ensures that nothing will ever be resolved. All while they continue to profit hugely from their interactions with the likes of Iran and have minimum direct hazards. They probably should be looking out for the future though, since a fundamentalist state like Iran will not likely to continue to be freindly once they consider themselves secure enough. Not to mention that both of those states have fundementalist Islamic problems that Iran is certain to bolster in the future.

One wonders what will be left of the UN when Annan leaves. Whoever takes his place will have to initiate a recovery phase that will be truly hellish.