September 24, 2009 | Forbes.com

The President And Two Dictators

America has “re-engaged the United Nations,” said President Barack Obama in his maiden speech Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly. Yes, it has, and within hours both Libya's Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had gone far to illustrate what a terrible idea that reengagement is.

If the current scene at the U.N. augurs a new world order, it's one in which Libya's man, Ali Abdussalam Treki, now wields the gavel of the General Assembly, and al-Qaddafi himself takes the podium right after Obama to steal the show. It's a new order in which Ahmadinejad mounts the stage for the fifth time in five years to herald a global destiny of “love and spirituality” as prefigured in his Islamic Republic of Iran, which he tells us–the bloody streets of Tehran notwithstanding–has just “successfully gone through a glorious and fully democratic election.”

Ahmadinejad made that claim as part of what is generously called the General Assembly “debate.” But in practice there is no public debating. There's a parade of speakers, each allotted a turn in the world spotlight. The chief qualification is that each speaker be a designated envoy of one of the U.N.'s 192 member states–no matter how murderous and unjust the route to that distinction.

In this forum Obama arrived with his message of “mutual interest and mutual respect.” To his credit, in his U.N. speech he did specifically warn that if North Korea and Iran persist in their “pursuit of nuclear weapons … then they must be stopped.” He didn't say how, except that “the world must stand together.”

And his over-riding theme was global togetherness, scrapping old divides, building new bridges and saying goodbye and good riddance to an era in which, in relation to everyone else, a unilateral U.S. was “increasingly defined by our differences.”

That was a fuzzy portrayal of the previous era. President George W. Bush during his first term did not unilaterally invade Iraq. He assembled a coalition, albeit not an “oil-for-food”-soaked U.N. coalition. And Bush, in the years following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, went back to the U.N. to obtain sanctions on both North Korea and Iran. If that's not memorable, perhaps it's because there were no useful results.

There were, of course, two illicit nuclear projects stopped during that period, though the U.N. had nothing to do with it. One was Libya's clandestine nuclear kit, which al-Qaddafi–spooked by the fate of Saddam–agreed to hand over to the U.S. in late 2003. The other was Syria's North Korea-abetted secret reactor. That was destroyed in 2007, not by a U.N. resolution, but by an Israeli air strike.

But Obama is certainly correct that Bush did not enjoy anything like Obama's welcome at the U.N. Obama is indeed ringing in a different era, including new promises and a new gift list. He came to the U.N.'s headquarters in New York with an agenda of three jam-packed days, starting with an address on climate change and culminating with plans to chair a summit-level meeting of the Security Council, focused on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

To the General Assembly, he promised an unconstrained flow of money, cooperation and shared destiny. He pointed out that on his watch the U.S. has already joined the U.N.'s previously spurned Human Rights Council (hoping to amend its chronically self-discrediting habits). He noted that the U.S. had signed the U.N. convention on disabilities and is on board with the U.N.'s (costly) climate change crusade. He said the time has come to scrap old divides and build new coalitions. He urged the assembled eminences to recognize that “All nations have rights, but all nations have responsibilities as well.”

In other words, he's trying to lead the way toward a new collective future in which America may pay a lot of bills, but will no longer try to lead. The new America wants to be one of the crowd–but a more pleasant, cooperative, responsible, nuclear-abjuring crowd. Obama also told them he was “not naïve.”

How awkward, then, that he was immediately followed at the podium by al-Qaddafi. Indifferent to his allotted time, as well as to most other norms of the democratic world, al-Qaddafi, tyrant of Libya for 40 years, is used to a captive audience. He spoke for more than an hour and a half. At times, he seemed to have run his thought process through a kitchen blender, and tipped out the results on the U.N. stage.

Along with reprising a series of wars from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, Qaddafi reviled the Security Council as the “terror council,” called swine flu a capitalist plot, defended the Taliban and the Somali pirates, demanded (not for the first time) $77.7 trillion in compensation to Africa for stolen resources, and tried to blame the Israelis for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. At one point he held up a copy of the U.N. charter and deliberately tore it. At another, in the name of promoting free medicine, he urged his audience to read his Little Green Book (a work derived from the same thought process as his speech). He called Obama his “son,” and said he would be “happy” if “Obama could stay forever as president.”

Ahmadinejad, speaking later in the day, was more polished in his delivery, but even worse in his import–in view of Iran's constellation of terrorist groups, nuclear ventures and missile projects. Ahmadinejad delivered one of his hallmark messianic speeches, declaring the Islamic Republic of Iran “one of the most democratic and progressive governments of the world.” He invited other nations to join Iran in the journey he envisions toward a “bright future for all mankind.” He spoke to a largely empty chamber, and a number of delegations walked out as he hit the predictable anti-Semitic portions of his speech. But no matter–the footage beamed out to the world was of Ahmadinejad holding the U.N. stage.

If it's tempting to dismiss al-Qaddafi and Ahmadinejad as outriders at an otherwise genial and enlightened U.N., think again. At the U.N., they are more than just starring acts in the current lineup of tyrants on parade. Despite Iran's brazen violation of U.N. sanctions on its nuclear program, and al-Qaddafi's relatively clean escape from U.N. sanctions, they wield a lot of influence at the U.N. Al-Qaddafi is currently chairing the African Union, a 52-member group which forms a powerful voting bloc in the U.N. General Assembly. Iran, as chronicled in a number of my previous columns, fields an outsize presence on the governing boards of an array of U.N. agencies, and has its hand in a surprising number of projects. The governments of both countries are rich in (nationalized) oil, and skilled in parlaying that wealth into power and influence.

And while specific alliances may come and go, both countries are part of a big fraternity of thug governments which long ago learned the byways of the U.N. and how to exploit them. From Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to the foreign ministers of Laos, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the rest of the caboodle of deeply unfree states, they all have a hand in the U.N. While the rulers of these countries may be very much interested in Obama sharing with them America's money, technology, trust and respect, they have widely divergent interests from the U.S. on at least one fundamental matter: freedom.

That may not be an obstacle to overwhelming shared interests at all times and in every case. America has joined forces with tyrannies before, the prime example being the U.S.-British alliance during World War II with Stalin's Soviet Union. Out of that alliance, at the end of the war, the U.N. was born.

But also out of that alliance, the U.N. was created crooked from the start. It is a grand collective, immune to law, reporting to itself, largely unaccountable and most easily exploited and corrupted by its least principled members. If it is to be used at all, it is a vehicle best used sparingly and with great caution.

Outside the walls, barricades, motorcades and security nets cocooning the U.N. this week, there have been thousands of protesters from some of the countries with dignitaries speaking within. To name a few, I have come across demonstrators from Libya, Burma, China, Cameroon, and, in large numbers, coming in some cases from hundreds or even thousands of miles away, Iran. Most of them are calling for the same things: democracy, justice, freedom. As Obama's presidency unfolds, there are almost surely moments ahead in which, whatever the yen to define away differences and dismiss divides, Obama–and America–will have to choose: The tyrant on the U.N. stage, or those little folks across the street.

Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.

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Issues:

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Africa African Union Barack Obama China Iran Iraq Israel Israelis John F. Kennedy Libya Mahmoud Ahmadinejad New York North Korea Saddam Hussein Saudi Arabia Somalia Soviet Union Syria Taliban Tehran United Kingdom United Nations United Nations General Assembly United Nations Human Rights Council United Nations Security Council United States World War II