The media sometimes ratchets up admiration for Annan by pointing out that his wife is Swedish and a close relative of Raoul Wallenberg. We are meant to infer that, on top of all his talents, Annan shares the ideals embodied during the last days of World War II by the foremost Swede of modern times. But Wallenberg's name should make us even more dismayed about Annan's record. Wallenberg refused to ignore the threat of massacres to come. Instead of ducking responsibility and carrying on with conventional work in Sweden, he made his way to Hungary, the scene of Hitler's last homicidal orgy against the Jews. In Budapest, Wallenberg exploited every available contact, resorting to shady tricks, bribes and other stratagems to save as many people as possible from the Holocaust. He never allowed himself to be duped by Hitler's cronies.
Perhaps no one's achievement should be judged by comparison with that of Wallenberg -- a titan of strength, courage, and perseverance. The trouble with Annan is that, when similar perils loomed, he proved especially wanting. Annan cannot plead that he faced any risk to his personal safety, whereas Wallenberg in 1944 and 1945 was in constant peril. Nor can he possibly excuse himself by saying that no warnings were given, or that he lacked resources, or that he did not have the international position to intervene. Annan had at his disposal all of the instruments of power and opinion that Wallenberg lacked.
Yet when thousands or hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to mortal threats that he had the authority and duty to avert, alleviate or at least announce, he failed abjectly. Now, despite the recent revelations about bribery in the UN's oil-for-food program for Iraq, the world is clamoring to entrust Annan with the future of more than 20 million Iraqis who survived former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's depraved dictatorship.
That is both because of who Annan is and what the UN has become: an institution in which no shortcoming, it seems, goes unrewarded.
Per Ahlmark is a former deputy prime minister of Sweden.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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