Annan at the End: Grading the Secretary-General

Traub enjoyed unusual access to Annan; for over a year starting in 2003, Annan permitted Traub to sit in on staff meetings and visits from international dignitaries and to take numerous overseas trips with him. In addition, Annan spoke privately to Traub on at least 18 occasions, during which he described his feelings about the latest UN conflicts, explained to Traub why he took one political path rather than another during some upheaval, and spoke frankly about the character of particular leaders. In many ways, this arrangement was a singular tribute to the secretary-general's remarkable self-confidence. Annan must also have hoped that by granting access to Traub, he would shape the story of his own service through the eyes of a sympathetic biographer.

The tale that emerges is really one of two different eras -- Annan's first five-year term, during which practically every matter he handled ended with success, leading to widespread acclaim, and his second term, when almost nothing went right and every crisis seemed to blow up in Annan's face. What is extraordinary about this portrait is that Annan's own personal characteristics do not seem to have changed much through these two terms. Instead, what were virtues in his first go-round -- his conciliatory nature, his tendency to issue innovative challenges, and his adherence to multilateralism -- had become palpable weaknesses by the second.

By the time Annan, the grandson of tribal chieftains in Ghana, became secretary-general in 1996, he had already spent almost his entire career at the UN, where his equanimity and cordiality had made him a popular and authoritative, if always soft-spoken, figure. In many ways, his fast climb through the ranks of the UN bureaucracy had an almost enchanted quality to it. By 1993, he had reached the prestigious post of head of peacekeeping under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

It was there, however, that Annan had his first brush with controversy. The trouble began the next year, when Annan failed to sufficiently warn the UN of the growing threat that radical Hutus were posing in Rwanda. Shortly thereafter, in a month-long genocidal fury, more than 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered despite the presence of a small UN force. Then, a few months later, 7,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, again in spite of the presence of UN peacekeepers. Annan has insisted that in both cases he pressed to the limits the Security Council directives given to him. But it has remained an open question whether he could (or should) have spoken out more forcefully about the looming disasters. Traub thinks he could have done more. This seems right: Annan could indeed have taken a more aggressive stance within the UN or resigned when he was ignored. In the end, however, he seems to have decided that he could do more good by continuing to work inside the organization. Whatever the merits of his decision, Annan's record was tarnished as a result.

Despite the disasters, he soon managed to impress U.S. diplomats with his decisiveness in approving the bombing of the Serbian army in 1995 -- something his own boss was unwilling to do. Annan was also subsequently successful in peacefully resolving bloody conflicts in Angola, Cambodia, and Haiti. As a result, he became the favorite candidate, especially in Washington, to replace Boutros-Ghali in 1996. During the backroom election contest, which Traub describes in compelling detail, France tried to block his selection. But Annan displayed great political acumen by promising to appoint a French national to his old peacekeeping post. The gambit worked, and Annan got the top job.

The new secretary-general soon became an international star. Capitalizing on his insider's knowledge of the organization, Annan showed a remarkable confidence in taking the UN in new directions. He boldly called for the organization to prevent future Rwandas and Bosnias, a challenge that engendered serious political opposition from many states, especially those in the developing world that feared it would lead to UN meddling in their internal affairs. He helped ravaged countries such as East Timor and Sierra Leone recover from calamity. He presided over an expansion in peacekeeping missions. He concluded a compact with international businesses to share in UN activities. He courted the U.S. Congress and convinced "Senator No," Jesse Helms of North Carolina, to restart the payment of U.S. dues. And by the end of his first term, he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for himself and the institution.

What most impressed observers such as the U.S. special envoy to the UN Richard Holbrooke and others about Annan was his moral seriousness. He seemed to give a new gravity and standing to the UN. Describing to Traub a meeting he held with Saddam in early 1998 to head off a possible war, Annan declared, "There may be times when the secretary-general has to stand alone and use the moral authority of the office, and one should not shy away from that." Traub, impressed by this determination, describes his subject as "the kind of moral actor that the UN had lacked since the time of [Dag] Hammarskjöld," the organization's dashing second secretary-general. Traub writes that Annan "believed devoutly in what he took to be the universal principles of human rights and humanitarianism and in the use of force against evil, so long as the force was mustered collectively and in conformity with international law. He also believed that the rich nations had a moral obligation to help the poorer ones."

THINGS FALL APART