What does the consensus on Guterres as a Secretary-General of the United Nations mean?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The end of the mandate of the current Secretary-General of the United Nations comes in conjunction with a set of developments that make the occasion of choosing an alternative a political global event from the first grade. The foreign policy of each of the great countries America and Russia has witnessed fundamental changes as the world witnesses articulated conflicts. In both fields the Russian American consensus on a specific name towards having the consensus in the Security Council has meanings and perspectives that are beyond just simplifying the work process and facilitating filling a vacancy.

During the mandate of the current Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Washington has dismounted in the era of George W. Bash’s wars and the neo- conservatives from the horse of its Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld who has launched the theory of the end of the need for the International organization, because Bush’s administration felt, and then the administration of the President Barack Obama of the need to activate the role of the United Nations either in covering and legitimizing its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, or by giving the cover of the war on Libya, which the staff of Obama’s administration recognizes  that it was a condition to promote the intervention there according to the US public opinion. But because of the lack of a similar cover for a military role in Syria due to the Russian and Chinese repetitive vetoes, Washington withdrew of the decision of the military intervention despite its conviction that there is no opportunity to present its project without it. With the US regression of having the ability of the uniqueness and surpassing the need for the United Nations, the world is witnessing now a growing rise of the Russian political and military role which puts the United Nations into an inclusive framework for the foreign policies, especially as a unified coverage for the war on terrorism to prevent the US discretion in using this pretext to impose special interests and considerations. Moscow puts its importance to make the United Nations a platform for the negotiation and an institution for making settlements and applying them in the conflict areas. It became evident that the containment of the Russian vital accelerated strong movement of reactors is impossible without a greater role of the United Nations that is accepted by Moscow.

The Portuguese Socialist Antonio Guterres who has chaired the government of his country for ten years represents a European figure close to Washington, he is quiet, educated and politically skilled, present, and initiator,  interested in the humanitarian affairs and spreading the culture of peace and negotiation, and an advocate of US Russian understanding that shades the movement of the United Nations to accelerate the resolution of the disputes by negotiation outside the standards, templates and theories that give the priority to the special goals of the parties, but for peace and the peaceful competition first, and then protecting the civilians in the conflicts. Despite Moscow’s preference of the Bulgarian Irina Bokova the director of UNESCO whose her nomination has been fallen by US veto because she raised the flag of Palestine over the UNESCO, and because of her recognition of the Palestinian country, it accepted not to use veto against Guterres after Bulgaria has withdrawn the nomination of Bokova who probably will occupy the post of the Deputy Secretary-General within Russian understanding with Guterres, as it is probable that a Russian diplomat will occupy the post of the political aide instead of the US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, and probably the Russian envoy in the United Nations will be Vitaly Churkin . Thus the Russian US consensus on a figure such as Guterres remindes us of a similar consensus on the arrival of the former Austrian Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, through whom his era the International Organization has been characterized with vigor and vitality.

Any observer can wonder if the US Russian confrontation ranging as suggested by the media backgrounds, then is not the nomination of the new Secretary General suitable for the mutual messages at this level, since the time is good for resolving the name of the candidate till the end of the year, and it was possible going on in the confrontation till the last day, and the understanding on a marginal figure that represents a significant employee who has a rank of secretary-general and who can pay salaries and conducting the routine procedures of the international organization which will be at the sideline of the upcoming events of the confrontations between the two largest countries in the world where there is no ability for the United Nations to intervene in other conflicts without their approval?

Guterres goes ahead as a result of  Russian US consensus on his name ,as an authorization to him to apply his theory which based on the call for such a consensus in order to go on in the negotiation issues about the conflicts, and to take them to understandings that do not have the title of a Russian US understanding after it was clear to Washington its ability to pay the costs of applying these understandings with its allies, and it seemed that the support of Washington indirectly to an active qualified energetic secretary-general gives an image other than the silly image which Ban Ki Moon represented, this makes the opportunities of forming new equations less expensive. Washington which waged the rebellion against the United Nations considers this an opportunity to restrict the Russian rise through an active role of the United Nations that is accepted by Moscow, and considered it its goal. Washington withdraws and retrograded in order to support the claim of Moscow to do the same exactly as how Moscow did before.

The war in Syria and Yemen, the Palestinian Cause, the issues of the immigration and displacement are the centers of the tasks which are supposed to be the priorities of Guterres’s tasks. He is so committed to them, and has negotiating perceptions for their approaching that needs an understanding on a framework between Moscow and Washington, but he has the opportunity to do what is necessary freely to launch negotiations of several platforms for crises known and experienced by this new secretary-general who knows the red lines of the international balance which is drawn by the US-Russian relations, and which have granted him the opportunity of arriving to the first international position and to test the opportunities of peace which based on the negative balance which stems from Moscow’s rise and the retreat of Washington. The first test is the decision to visit Damascus.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,