By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 4 -- During this week's shutdown (or slim-down) of the US government, analogies to various other countries and failed states have been made.
Now former US State Department official Jeffrey Feltman, whom Inner City Press has covered this week in meetings with Iran's Hassan Rouhani and Lebanon's caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, has brought the analogy home.
Feltman is quoted as texting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri that he moved on from the US government when it became too much like... Lebanon.
At the UN, Feltman's Department of Political Affairs is sometimes kept from the biggest ticket items by the big-footing of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council, but it is active on other issues.
When on October 2, just before the Security Council's Great Lakes trip which Inner City Press has so far covered here and here took off, DPA at its own request briefed the Security Council about the Constitutional crisis in the Maldives.
While the UK said that its Commonwealth has already expressed concern at delay in second round of Presidential elections, it should be noted that this Commonwealth still plans to go to Sri Lanka in November for its Heads of Government Meeting.
Are the UK's concerns consistent? Are Ban Ki-moon's and Feltman's DPA's? Under Ban Ki-moon, did DPA ever ask for a Security Council meeting? Or was it only the British chief of Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes? And what did that come to? And where is Ban Ki-moon's report on the UN's inaction in 2009? Watch this site.
