New leaders are soon to take over Congress and the Pentagon, a new course is urged for US policy in Iraq, and the President will soon select a new ambassador to the United Nations.  How will this all work as the US faces a new UN Secretary General?

The current SG Kofi Annan has served for ten years at the helm of the UN – and what a ride it has been for him and the world.  What do we know of Annan’s decade, and what does that suggest for what lies ahead?

A new book gives us an intimate view of those years.  James Traub, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, has written a highly-readable history of the Secretary-General’s era, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American Power. My colleagues Rick Barton and Karin von Hippel at CSIS, with Peter Gantz of Refugees International, hosted Traub this week, which included a lively discussion with many of us.

The book combines skepticism about the UN as an organization with vigorous reporting about the individuals who bring the institution and its ideals to life.  Some US names are familiar – Richard Holbrooke figures prominently, as do Senator Jesse Helms and Ambassador John Bolton. But he also profiles key personalities within the UN and those, both famous and not, who have worked to halt genocide, to argue for change, and to push for modernization of its creaky ways.  Traub had access, and his book is told as a fly-on-the-wall for many pivotal crises of the last ten years: What happened in Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans and Sierra Leone? What is the story of Afghanistan and Iraq? Politics are covered too, including the SG’s effort to bring reform, to recast sovereignty to have responsibilities, and to deal with the Oil-for-Food scandal.  

As for the Washington world, Traub covers our intense fight with ourselves over the US role in the world, and at the UN.   I know this story well, and he got much of it right, including meetings I was in on Capitol Hill and at the UN during the arguments over peacekeeping operations and US arrears.   Who else knows about Senator Helms’ trip and speech to the Security Council, and then his resultant hosting of the Ambassadors on the Council in Washington in 2000? 

What will happen next in Iraq or Afghanistan is not known, but without Annan, the unknowns are greater.  Traub is also right to offer a cautionary tale of the importance of engaging at the UN, warts and all, to support US interests.  The next US Ambassador to the UN should read this book.

Related posts:

1. Goodbye to 2009: The year in review