Secretary-General Clinton.

Great Debates
1

There have been rumors out there that our man Bill is interested in taking Kofi Annan’s spot in 2006. The articles I’ve read seem to suggest that he’d have broad international support and a good chance of winning. On balance, I think this would be a good thing.

It would obviously immediately transform the way the US relates to the UN. Clinton is more popular than W; and that being the case, butting heads with Clinton is going to very problematic politically. Yes, W would be a lame duck, but he must still think of the party. Open political conflict against S-G Clinton would sound good to the hard right, but would be much more dicey for the centrists. If Kerry is president, of course, his testicles will be found in a jar on Bill’s desk: standing up to S-G Clinton would be verrrry difficult politically for any Democratic president.

All of which may be music to the ears to many around the globe, but here’s the kicker: Clinton would also try to change the way the UN relates to the US. He is, fundamentally, a pragmatist. And while he will counteract the unilateralist tendencies of the Bush admin, he will also, in effect, tell much of the rest of the world The Way It Is: that for better or worse, America is and for the forseeable future will be the world’s dominant entity, that reflexive anti-Americanism gets no-one anywhere, and that (to steal a line from Tony Blair) the price of influence is that you can’t leave America alone to face the tough issues.

Remember that this was a guy who wanted to depose Saddam in 1998. While he is a diplomat, he is not a Chomsky-left dreamer who thinks that the UN can be a viable world government, or that its some sort of counterbalance to the US. I think he will see it for what it is: a political body with no real teeth, but whose opinion can be taken seriously by the US, provided that it in turn starts taking the world’s problems seriously.

I would expect him to say that whatever failings of execution the Bush administration committed, they were basically right in their diagnosis: that the Arab world is deeply fucked up and a threat to everyone that needs reform immediately. And I expect the rest of the world to agree. I also expect him to say some tough things to the Israelis, but also to call Arab anti-semitism for what it is. Kofi can’t do any of this (not that I think he wants to) because he has zero support among the American Electorate, hence zero sway with American politicans. Billy Jeff does.

I don’t want to overstate this. I don’t think all the world’s hard dry places will suddenly sprout green grass to feed the lambs and bunnies that will trail in the wake of our newly crowned Emperor of Love. And he will be fighting the bureacratic interia and deeply entrenched culture of diplomatic bullshit in a place so unserious that it puts Sudan in charge of Human Rights and Iran in charge of non-proliferation.

But I agree with the idea that history may look back on the GWB administration as an ugly but inevitable global Bad Cop, and I think Clinton would make an excellent Good Cop; after all, everyone loves the Good Cop, and we all know he loves to be loved.

Of course, the really interesting scenario is Bill running the UN and Hillary taking the White House in 2008. But let’s not go there.

2

Of course, this assumes Bush is President in 2006. :wink:

I agree. If we do go there, somebody’ll have an embolism. In any case, yes, a former US President as Secretary-General would be very interesting domestically and internationally, and it might help patch up America’s relationship with the UN, which is a little strained these days.

3

Imagine all the new chances Billy Boy would have for blow jobs as the UN SG!! :wink:

Seriously though, I thought the UN SG had to have several foriegn languages as part of the pre-req’s for the job, and I’m unsure that Clinton has that. Also, I’m unsure REALLY how popular he is abroad…wouldn’t a lot of people in foriegn countries be mistrustful of an American (and a former president to boot) being the SG of the UN?

Its an intersting possibility but I just don’t know how real it is…I don’t know enough about how the UN SG is ‘elected’ or whatever happens to know if Clinton REALLY has a shot at it. And of course all this assumes Clinton WANTS to be the UN SG…does he really?

-XT

4

I love Bill and think he’d be great at this job buy:

Other then a Brit during the first year (for less then a year I think), no county with a permanant seat on the national security council has ever had a citizen as Sec-Gen. I think there is a good reason for this, as it would give one country too much power in the UN. Especially if that person was such an obvious direct representitive of their country, such as a former president.

Also, regardless of how respected Clinton is in the international community, I think having a US president as Sec-Gen would cause countries already suspicious that the US is trying to dominate the world become even more suspicious of both us and the UN.

God knows we don’t need to give the Repub talk radio folks anymore reason to villify either the Clinton’s or the UN.

Finally, supposedly the next Sec-Gen is supposed to be asian, as by tradition the seat rotates continents and its supposed to be their turn.

5

There is the consideration that compared to President Bush, some people may have a rosier view of Clinton now than they may have held a decade ago.

6

Would Clinton be the first UNSG from a Security Council permanent-member nation? Would that be a good idea, irrespective of the choice of Clinton himself?

And of course, since then we’ve had Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt and Kofi Annan of Ghana. Given how much impact the UNSC’s Big Five—US, Russia, China, and to a lesser extent the UK and France—already have in international affairs, I kinda think it makes sense to have the SG represent one of the smaller interests.

[Or, in preview, what Malodorous said.]

7

If there are articles out there could you please cite? I know this isn’t GQ, just curious.

8

But the UN has already had SGs from Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. It has never had one from North America, has it? It should be our turn. The next SG should be American or Canadian.

9

I had thought there was a req’t that the SG speak both English and French, but although I did a search, I didn’t come up with anything. I guess it must be an unwritten rule that the French probably insist on. And since French is, after all, one of the languages that all UN docs must be published in (right?) it does make a certain amount of sense.

10

pssst—BG, Mexico’s part of North America too (that’s what the “NA” in “NAFTA” stands for).

However, I’m not sure “region” is the same thing as “continent” in this case. (Consider the regional distinction made in my link between Annan from sub-Saharan Africa and Boutros-Ghali from North Africa.) The UN may consider that it’s time for an SG from East Asia or South Asia, each of which has about 1/6 of the total global population and neither of which has been represented by a UNSG up to now.

11

I vaguely remember reading something about it once somewhere (hell, could have been you and could have been here). I admit I’m not up on how the UN selects an SG, or what criteria they go on. However, my knee jerk uninformed first thought is that a former American President, no matter how ‘popular’, is not going to make too many folks out there in The World™ comfortable…and its down right going to piss off some not insignificant percentage of them.

However, I can imagine BC dreaming of kicking back in the UN SG’s office after a hard day of squabbling with various factious nations to a well deserved cigar and one of the new swedish interns…to help him releave some of the presures (of the paper work of course). :smiley:

-XT

12

It is, but it isn’t, you know. Culturally it’s part of Latin American. And there’s already been a Peruvian SG. So there. :slight_smile:

13

But “Latin America” is not a continent. :slight_smile:

14

It isn’t, but it is, you know. Like India.

15

No, India is a subcontinent.

But the whole Europe/Asia continent division is pretty arbitrary anyway.

16

(They’ve been going on for the past year about what a useless entity the UN is, but of course if Sec-Gen Bubba were to materialize, they would rail against such a man being given a position of such vast global importance. Hypocrisy always makes good comedy.)

Anaan has called publicly for the UN to be overhauled. Clinton is a globalizer, and if he were to take over, I would expect him to push for major Charter reforms to give the UN some real muscle.

Ya know, the same way we held a Constitutional Convention when it was clear that the federal government under the Articles of Confederation similarly had no gonads.

17

Oh, I don’t know. Both of these guys are very smart, and Clinton is extremely crafty besides. I wouldn’t put it past them to sit down over lunch and nail down a few high-profile but not operationally significant issues which Clinton can advocate and Kerry can block. It’d take no more than a couple of hours to hammer out a general plan, and they’d have some nifty and very effective political theater to enact. The mainstream center would eat it up.

18

I doubt he would have any chance. Tradition and tacit agreement at least (if not actually formal rules, I wouldn’t know) is that no citizen from one of the country that have a permanent seat at the security council can be elected as secretaty general.

Secondly, still another custom (or, once again, perhaps rule) is that each continent get the seat in turn. So, it would have to be americas’ turn.
All in all, I don’t believe for an instant that Clinton would have the slightest chance. Even lacking the rules I mentionned above, very few countries would agree with electing a representant of the most powerful nation, let alone its former president. Let alone in the current international athmosphere of general mistrust re. the USA.

19

It appears to have started with a UPI story, and it’s already a part of the Wikipedia entry. That certainly seems to indicate that the regional rotation is merely customary, not a rule. And while the the official UNSG’s site says that the 5 permanent UNSC nations have a veto on the SG nominee, it does not say that one of their citizens cannot be UNSG. It appears the catch might be getting the nomination.

But that’s a political question. It appears, though, that there’s no rule saying Bubba can’t rule the world.
With all due respect to Clairobscur, I keep hearing people say they don’t hate America, they just hate Bush. I don’t think that many people will hold the current admin against Clinton; in fact, I think that’s part of why he’ll have support. In many minds, Clinton represents the “good Americans” they want back (Whether they’re in for a rude awakening is another question).

And Cervaise, I don’t doubt that there would be some piddly disagreements, and that some could even be arranged. But that’s just the point: the political theater would exist to save face for whoever was in the WH. On the things that really mattered, Clinton would go over the president’s head, straight to the people, and win.
If it’s agreed that it’s possible, I would like to see some more discussion on the merits of the idea. Am I alone in seeing the virtues of this?

20

I see advantages in having the UN run by an internationalist American. But I also see a downside: Clinton is a neoliberal, principally responsible for NAFTA. IOW, he cares more about expanding corporate interests around the globe than about what that does to the peoples of developing countries who find themselves saddled with massive debts and under WTO receivership, and what it does to the peoples of industrialized countries who find their jobs outsourced to poorer countries with no labor unions and looser environmental-protection laws.