Tom Plate / Syndicated columnist
The subtle agitations of the secretary-general

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LOS ANGELES — You knew exactly what he meant.

Kofi Annan may be the globe's premier international diplomat — son of a Fante tribal chief, a mellifluous, French- and English-speaking African-born aristocrat, handsome husband to the elegant Nane Lagergren, the Swedish artist, and in his own personal way the very essence of charming discretion. But you knew exactly what the U.N. secretary-general meant in his recent speech before a World Affairs Council audience in Los Angeles, and while his words were carefully parsed, they weren't being minced.

He laid it all out as precisely as post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat, deftly deploying tiny pointillist dots of color to produce luminous light on a large canvas.

His initial stroke was to sketch out a U.S. presidents' Hall of Fame, as far as the U.N. community was concerned.

First of all, he said, there was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt — undaunted by the failure of the League of Nations. "He did not conclude that international organization was bound to fail," said Annan. "Nor did he think that the United States should retreat once more into isolation and rely solely on its military power."

The goateed gentleman from Ghana was also happy to note that FDR's vision was embraced by another U.S. president, Harry Truman, whose signature graces the founding U.N. Charter, "with the enthusiastic support of Republican statesmen such as Arthur Vandenberg and John Foster Dulles."

The secretary-general then pictured a third U.S. president in warm, glowing colors as well. It was Dwight David Eisenhower, he recalled, who insisted on the primacy of the United Nations during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and who unveiled his Atoms for Peace proposal — "in one of the most visionary acts of modern statesmanship" — before the U.N. General Assembly.

From its creation, emphasized the secretary-general, our greatest American leaders viewed the United Nations as central to U.S. national security.

Not that the institution's perfect, by any means: In fact, he suggested, it can be harmed as much by unrealistic expectations about its performance as by foolish dismissals of its true capabilities. He paraphrased the late Henry Cabot Lodge: "The United Nations did not take humanity to heaven. But it played a vital role in saving it from hell."

Hellish situations abound in the world today. A U.N. intervention is no magic wand. But Annan specifically highlighted a trio of Asian hot spots where international intervention undoubtedly helped cool geopolitical temperatures and put new institutions into place: Afghanistan, Cambodia and East Timor.

In the last instance, the United Nations plans to withdraw its support mission next year as Australia provides this promising new nation with security assistance. East Timor may be far from a roaring success, but thanks to the dedicated U.N. staff and the determined Aussies, it is anything but a failed state.

In a recent nonpartisan poll, 68 percent of respondents in East Timor claimed to be optimistic about the prospects of democracy in their new country; interestingly, the same poll shows that more than 50 percent of the population approves of the U.N. mission's work there. Would there be such optimism in you-know-where?

These three countries are still overheated works in progress, to be sure. But the dire state in which they would be today in the absence of U.N.-led international ministration would make for a much gloomier picture.

The hardscrabble work of reducing misery and increasing hope cannot proceed apace without a high measure of international solidarity and the steadfastly firm support of the United States.

"Today we see new divisions," said the secretary-general, referring to the Security Council cleavage over the continuing Iraq war, rising tensions between parts of the Islamic world and parts of the West, and the destructive divide developing between North and South made worse since the failed trade talks at Cancun.

"Nations are increasingly deaf to each other's concerns," he said. "Collective action is needed."

The United States is indispensable to the United Nations, and to the extent it is willing to work within a multinational framework of international law and consensus, there will be "widespread acceptance of American leadership."

Added Annan, pointedly: "These are the very principles on which, thanks in part to the United States, the United Nations is based."

Failing to respect and employ the United Nations, for all its manifest flaws, will be to undermine international order and risk returning the global political system to Hobbesian feral chaos. "The United Nations is not perfect," concluded Annan, "but it is precious."

Should anyone succeed in tearing it down, it will take many decades to rebuild what already exists.

With the passing exception of a single word of praise for the American president (in connection with AIDS awareness), Annan never once mentioned George W. Bush. Nor America's going-it-almost-alone in Iraq. He didn't have to. You knew exactly what he meant.

Tom Plate is a UCLA professor and founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network (www.asiamedia.ucla.edu). His column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.

Copyright 2003, Tom Plate