By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 23 --
Syria was the
subtext in the
UN Security
Council
throughout
Monday's
Middle East
debate.
Speaker after
speaker began
with
Palestine, but
ended with
Syria, nearly
all of them
offering
support for
Kofi Annan and
his six point
plan.
Norway
offered
support -- and
offers its
General Robert
Mood as Force
Commander or
SRSG, no
longer opposed
by Russia as
it appeared
from
Ambassador
Churkin's
stakeout ten
days ago.
Toward
the end of
the debate,
Iran and
members of the
Latin Grupo
ALBA took
their
terms,
opposing
regime change
but tellingly
also praising
Kofi Annan.
Is this good
diplomacy or
sloppy
thinking?
Saudi
Arabia's
Permanent
Representative
took a swipe
at Iran about
Abu Moussa
island,
then intoned
that
"repression...
no longer has
a place in the
modern world."
One
imagined that
Syria's Bashar
Ja'afari would
snark back
about the
plight of
women in
Saudi Arabia.
But instead
his approach
was to chide
Secretary
General
Ban Ki-moon
and his
Political
Affairs
director Lynn
Pascoe for not
mentioning the
Golan Heights.
Afterward
Ja'afari
told Inner
City Press
that the
Middle East
agenda item of
the
Security
Council is
supposed to be
about Israel,
Palestine,
Lebanon
and the
Occupied
Golan, but has
been switched
into talk
about his
country. He
didn't respond
to two Iranian
journalists'
question about
Abu Musa.
Iran,
in the
chamber,
called Abu
Musa an
"eternal" part
of the Iranian
territory, and
alluded to its
"brotherly"
relations with
the Gulf
States. Which
ones? Maybe
the majority
in Bahrain?
Watch
this site.
