While Syria was prescribing its special brand of “stability” for Iraq (see post below), the UN’s Kofi Annan took time out this weekend from collecting prizes in Switzerland to phone both Syria’s Bashar Assad and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urging them both to promote “stability” in Lebanon. The rulers of Iran and Syria are, of course, by their own murderous totalitarian lights doing exactly that — by way of abetting Hezbollah’s bid to hijack the Lebanese state. The UN reports, in phrases so bland they could be bottled and sold as white-out, that Annan “urged them to counsel the parties concerned to exercise patience and resolve their differences through dialogue.” If Annan wants to use his ample stage and taxpayer-funded UN machinery to play peacemaker, why doesn’t he stop dignifying Damascus and Tehran with phone calls that imply they are part of the solution, and instead explain to the world public that these thugs, with their mix of money, weapons, and terrorist-support networks, are actively promoting the havoc?
Kofi Calling
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Claudia Rosett is widely recognized as a ground-breaking reporter on corruption at the United Nations. Her investigative reporting skills, drawn from three decades as a journalist covering international affairs, led her to expose the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, the worst financial fraud in the history of humanitarian relief. Ms. Rosett worked from 1984-2002 as a staff editorialist, editor and reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared before six U.S. House and Senate Committees and Subcommittees to testify on subjects including U.N.-related corruption and the Iran-North Korea strategic alliance. Her work on Oil-for-Food earned Claudia the 2005 Eric Breindel Award and the Mightier Pen award, and for her on-site coverage of China's Tiananmen Square in 1989, she won an Overseas Press Club Citation for Excellence. She is a Foreign Policy Fellow with the Independent Women's Forum, and writes a column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.
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