inside the glass house

UN-US relations: Who’s slapping whom in the face?
NEW YORK - As the UN gets ready to celebrate its 60th anniversary with a summit meeting of world leaders next month, the US may be heading towards a political confrontation course with the world body. Clearly, these are not the best of times for US-UN reations.

The US House of Representatives has already passed a bill to withhold half of the mandatory US dues to the UN — $220 million out of a total of $440 million 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.

President Bush has defied an overwhelming majority of critics, including some of his own party loyalists and appointed John Bolton as his ambassador to the UN making the first "recess appointment" of a US envoy in the history of the world body.

Bush circumvented the Senate opposition by using his prerogative to make an appointment while the legislative body was in "recess" — which will keep Bolton as head of the US mission to the UN until January 2007.
The US president has also made at least three other similar "recess" appointments, including to the US Circuit Court of Appeals, the Defence Department and the State Department.

According to Senator 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 UN."

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 UN itself.

Perhaps the best — and most sarcastic — comment came from the editorial writer of the New York Times who wrote last week about the controversial appointment: "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 UN 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.

So, at a news conference last week, one of the reporters asked the UN spokesman whether Secretary-General Kofi Annan, at his first meeting with Bolton, had inquired whether the new US 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," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric responded rather seriously, "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."

Question: "Did he assure the Secretary-General that he will… (not lop off 10 floors). Spokesman: We look forward to working with him. (End of questioning.)

Meanwhile, the threat of another US-UN confrontation is looming in the political horizon. The Bush administration may deny a visa to the new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad who is expected to address the UN summit of world leaders September 14-16.

According to widespread press reports, the new president is said to have been one of the student leaders who took over the US embassy in Teheran in 1979 just after the Islamic Revolution following the ouster of the strongly pro-American 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 US embassy officials as hostages after the siege. The Iranians have also said the new president was not involved in the takeover of the American embassy.

But still, the Bush administration could use this rumour as an excuse to deny him a visa to enter the US for the upcoming summit, thereby triggering another political confrontation with the UN.

The US says it has a legitimate right to deny a visa (even if the person is on an official visit to the UN) if he or she is deemed a threat to the "national security" of the country.

But UN spokesman Dujarric says: "The host country agreement (between the UN and the US) calls on the US not to impose any impediment to the travel to the UN of any representative of a member state on official business."

Still, the late Yasser Arafat, former head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 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 a resounding slap in the face to the United States.

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