Noted with interest: “Praise at U.N. for a New U.S. Envoy’s Inclusive Tactics and Convivial Style”

Excerpted from an article by James Estrin published June 6, 2007 on The New York Times. NWI encourages reading the entire article.

Concluding questions by NWI. Comments and insight are sought.

One by one, the ambassadors at an unusually jolly diplomatic dinner last month rose to pay tribute to the new American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. . . . He was a needed “breath of fresh air,” said one. Another described bonding with him on a Security Council trip the way a child might talk up a new friend at summer camp. A third said that while no one expected disagreements with American policy to end, he liked the “sensitive” way that policy was now presented.

His turn to respond, Mr. Khalilzad stood and said, “I have discovered from your comments that the best thing I have done was to choose my predecessor.”

As Mr. Khalilzad confronts many of the same issues for the United States that Mr. [John R.] Bolton did — Darfur, Iran, Lebanon, the Middle East, overhauling United Nations management — he emphasizes his confidence in the power of personal diplomacy and says he believes it can produce better results.

“We need to work harder to explain what we are about because there is a lot of mistrust here, a degree of automaticity that if the U.S. wants something, then a range of countries, a significant number, will immediately be suspicious and question our motives,” he said.

In the first major test of his influence this past month, Mr. Khalilzad pushed for a vote on a resolution creating an international tribunal to judge suspects in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, despite warnings that acting now could inflame the already volatile politics of Lebanon. . . . The measure passed 10 to 0, with five countries abstaining.

Did he think his personal approach kept Vitaly I. Churkin, the envoy of Russia, which had voiced objections, from using his veto to kill the measure? “I don’t know,” he said, “but he opposed it in an agreeable way.”

Questions:

• How does an ambassador influence perception of an organization?
• Does a confrontational style of an outgoing leader hinder or help an inclusive style of an incoming leader?
• How far does a comic comment – “I have discovered from your [positive] comments that the best thing I have done was to choose my predecessor” – bridge gaps or lead to ties?
• Can the “power of personal diplomacy” “produce better results” beyond the United Nations?
• To what extent does Ambassador Khalilzad’s sentiment of needing “to work harder to explain what we are about” have applicability to the other countries as well as his own?
• What is the value of opposing “in an agreeable way”?

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- NWI staff

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