By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un1traded072109.html
UNITED NATIONS, July 21 -- As the press coverage of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's first two and a half years has grown more and more negative, Ban's defenders have rushed to come up with explanations other than lack of accomplishments to explain the bad reviews.
The most interesting theory, which may even be true, was explained to Inner City Press by two separate senior advisors to Ban. It paints Ban was the victim of European horse trading involving the International Monetary Fund. The scenario, which because we have seen it nowhere else in print we will call an Inner City Press exclusive, goes like this:
--There are three major international posts which become vacant or up for renewal in 2012: the World Bank, IMF and UN Secretary General. The United States has historically held a monopoly over the top job World Bank, with the Europeans controlling the IMF, as shown during Dominique Strauss-Kahn's ascent in 2007 to replace Rodrigo de Rato.
--The world however has changed, with the United States needing China more and more, to the point where the U.S. would give up leadership of the World Bank to China, in exchange for commitments by China to continue to invest in the U.S., its Treasury bills and otherwise.
--The European would be willing to give up the job of Managing Director of the IMF, if they could name a new Secretary General in 2012 to replace Ban Ki-moon.
By unwritten rule, however, the Asian group has dibs on two terms atop the UN, or even three terms if Ban were replaced in 2012 by another Asian such as Jose Ramos Horta (who perhaps relatedly as editorialized today in the Australian press about Western Sahara, a UN issue far from Timor Leste).
But if China, the center of gravity of the Asian Group, were to get the top job at the World Bank, they could be persuaded to allow a candidate from (Eastern) Europe to take over from Mr. Ban.
Could this explain or come up on Ban's current trip to China? Watch this site.And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1traded072109.html
