Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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Kofi's Trip to Tehran

Monday August 21, 2006

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Late last week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced he would be going to Iran at the end of August. This created no small amount of concern among rational thinking people around the world because a visit from the Secretary-General would be seen as a reward by the government of Iran.

Iran is considered, by nearly every government, to be the arms supplier, the trainer, the financier, and the overall inspiration to Hezbollah.

Iran is considered, by nearly every government, to be largely responsible for the escalating slaughter in Iraq.

And, as recently as yesterday, according to Reuters:

Iran said � it would not suspend uranium enrichment, ruling out the main demand in a nuclear package backed by six world powers that aims to allay Western fears Tehran is seeking to build atomic bombs.

In the face of all this Kofi Annan was going to go to Tehran and meet with the Iranian leaders.

On Saturday, Fox News Channel's reporter Bob Sellers asked me about Annan's trip to Iran. I don't remember my exact words but they had something to do with the notion of Kofi selling out the United States.

I suggested that Kofi Annan, being an expert in the ways of United Nations resolutions, would likely go to help Iran draft an official response to the demand that it stop enriching uranium which would, at a minimum, allow it to buy more time to continue to enrich uranium.

It was the United Nations, we have to remember, which either watched Iran and Syria finance, train, and arm Hezbollah - in which case it is guilty of malfeasance; or, the UN observers missed the tens of thousands of missiles which were being brought in - in which case it is guilty of nonfeasance.

Kofi Annan will most certainly not go to Tehran and tell the Iranians they have to stop trying to build nuclear weapons. Nor will he tell President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he needs to stop fomenting horror, terror, and mayhem in the region.

The biggest danger in Kofi Annan waltzing around the Middle East is this: His term as Secretary-General ends on December 31, 2006.

Even when he was supposed to have cared about his public image he has overseen the most corrupt period in UN history - including his son's being up to his ears in the Oil-for-Food scandal.

When he leaves office and becomes a private citizen who knows what deals - cooked up while on the UN's travel dime - will kick into force?

I have two words of advice for Kofi Annan when he visits Tehran: Stay there.

Still on the Middle East, our great and gallant allies, the French, have stepped up to the plate on the issue of supplying troops for the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

After strutting around the Security Council convincing everyone how crucial they were to the process of constructing a cease-fire resolution (which is heavily dependent on an multi-national peacekeepers), the French have offered up 200 civil engineering troops overseen by 10 officers.

According to an editorial in the LA Times:

"The stingy French offer is more than a symbolic setback. It calls into question the practicality of the U.N.'s plan for a quick deployment of 3,500 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon�"

The City Editor of the Boston Herald was less reserved:

"The shamelessness of France knows no bounds � They desperately want to be taken seriously as a major power. So they sat down with the United States and hammered out a peace plan. Then, before the ink was dry, they shrugged a Gallic shrug."

After Bob Sellers and I had finished our interview I said that the United Nations was the perfect reason for the existence of plywood: "We should begin, immediately, boarding up the windows of the UN building, close it down, and send all the Ambassadors home."

After that happens, I have two words for the displaced Ambassadors: Stay there.

On the Secret Decoder Ring Page today: Links to the Iranian refusal to stop its nuclear program, the LA Times editorial and the Boston Herald op-ed. Also a cool Mullfoto from Andrews Air Force Base last week and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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