The American Enterprise Institute has posted Mark Falcoff's review of a new book by a UN insider, an American who served on the staff of the Secretary-General. Falcoff's review is "A stagnant cesspool at Turtle Bay." Falcoff deems it "a remarkable book" revealing the organization's "principal characteristic" as its massive waste of resources. Falcoff describes the book's account of the evolution of the Secretariat from the Cold War to the present:

Since the end of the Cold War, Soviet hegemony at the Secretariat has been replaced by the growing influence of the Islamic bloc. Further, before 1989 the U.N. was basically a playground for representatives of irrelevant Third World states to pretend to be important (and enjoy shopping at Bloomingdale's), while the U.S. and the Soviet Union confronted one another in more important places. Since the collapse of the latter, however, the Secretariat has refocused on undermining the United States--and the U.N.'s other bugaboo--Israel.

Indeed, the most shocking part of this book is the unwholesome obsession of the U.N. culture with Jews real or imagined, whether in Israel or the United States. Although Israel should have roughly 15 nominees working in the Secretariat, until recently there wasn't a single one; even now, a disproportionate number are Palestianians with Israeli passports. As for the United States, it is alleged to be wholly under the thumb of Jews. When congressional critics like Senator Nancy Kassebaum or the late Senator John Heinz raise embarrassing questions that have nothing to do with Israel--say, about the U.N.'s finances--they are blithely dismissed as Jews themselves.

Apparently the first question put to Mr. Sanjuan himself when he joined the secretary-general's staff (by his Soviet deputy) was "So your father was a Jew, yes?") That such nonsense could take place during the tenure of a recycled Austrian Nazi like Kurt Waldheim can hardly surprise, but what are we to say when they continue under his successor, a low-rent Peruvian with the made-up name of Perez de Cuellar?

On a related note, Jewish Current Issues has alerted us to the transcript of the September 15 interview of Secretary Rice by the New York Post editorial board before her remarks to the UN General Assembly. Also of interest is the transcript of her September 15 interview with the NBC editorial board and a certain Katie. Jewish Current Issues proprietor Rick Richman points out the following exchange:

QUESTION: ...I don’t think people necessarily compute that a democratic Iraq translates into a safer United States. I don’t think that message is necessarily gotten through to people.

SECRETARY RICE: Well –

QUESTION: They see it as way over there and –

SECRETARY RICE: No, Katie, they – I don’t disagree that’s what the polls show right now. I do think that in time, when this settles out again, that the ground is there for – to return to the argument we were making and to win that argument.

There’s a reason Americans also don’t want us to pull out of the Iraq because they understand that somehow it’s linked to our security. If they didn’t understand that, why wouldn’t they say, well, you know, we’ll just – because I think they do understand it’s linked to our security.

QUESTION: And on that – on the flipside, you know, the argument it simply galvanized extremism worldwide and seemed to chin up -- chin it up, I guess, that’s what people argue.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I find this the most bizarre argument of all. For the period from the emergence of Usama bin Laden at the beginning of the ‘90s, but I think George Schultz would argue going all the way to back to ’83 and the bombing of the barracks in Lebanon, you had a terrorist threat that was growing and getting stronger and getting bolder. And it was essentially undisturbed by American policy. It was – or world policy – and there were skirmishes here and there, but basically, nobody took it on. And then it exploded in a big way on September 11th and we recognized and now are getting fuller view that there were so over the world, that they were laying in wait, that this is an ideology of extremism that has been growing and gaining steam for an extended period of time. And so now we’ve confronted it. And people say, “Oh my goodness, they’ve come out so you must have created them.” No, we didn’t create them. They’ve now come out to fight because we’re fighting them.

And so when you hear people say, you know, Iraq is a training ground for terrorists. It’s a battle ground.

QUESTION: Haven’t a lot of foreign fighters infiltrated the border and it came to light in an (inaudible) this morning –

SECRETARY RICE: Yes. Of course they have. So –

QUESTION: -- and he was talking about that and how it sort of decreased recently but so many – in other words, so I see your argument for the world, but what about for Iraq itself?

SECRETARY RICE: But, Katie, the problem is there were some --

QUESTION: -- you like to talk crossfire? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE: I’m an academic, I love debate. No, look, they were someplace causing these problems and now they decided, because they understand the centrality and the importance of Iraq, that they’re going to fight in Iraq. But we were going to fight them in Iraq or we’re going to fight them someplace and they weren’t sitting someplace drinking tea and engaged in productive lives and decided, oh my goodness, they’re fighting in Iraq now so I think I’ll go to Iraq. That’s not who these people are. These are hardened, core veterans of jihads who now have come to Iraq to fight, so they have to be defeated somewhere. We just as well defeat them in Iraq. And that’s why I find the argument, that, you know, I was saying earlier, it’s like saying, "Well, the Nazis got experience on the battlefield." Well, yes, they did, when we decided to do battle with them. They’re getting experience on the battlefield because we’re doing battle with them. But the absence of Iraq, it would’ve been – it would’ve been Afghanistan or it would’ve been the U.S. presence in the Gulf.

Tony Blair took this on very effectively yesterday when he said, "When are we going to stop allowing the extremists to make us the excuse for their extremism? When are we going to stop falling prey to the argument that we created extremism when we know that in fact this has been there, unattended and now we’ve finally confronted it." And I think that’s really the crux of this.

QUESTION: The problem is that (inaudible) – does that weaken the President’s hand at dealing with some of the tough foreign policy questions that he’s shown a great deal of sticking to. He’s made unpopular choices. And does this make it harder for him to stick to those choices over the long term, especially as we see the strength of the insurgency (inaudible) costs in the deaths of just this past week – today and yesterday?

SECRETARY RICE: It doesn’t because he won’t let it. The President knows why we’re embarked on what we’re embarked on. And that this is an historic moment. This is quite literally a crack in time in history and if we don’t get it right, then the United States is going to be vulnerable and insecure for a long period of time. And he’s not going to be deterred in doing what needs to be done to get it right because of poll numbers. I know him and he’s just not.

And I don’t think the United States will be deterred in doing what needs to be done because where – you know, I hear sometimes people say, "Well, it’s very chaotic and it’s very violent," and it is all of those things. But as compared to what? The false stability of the Middle East with authoritarian regimes that had ruled with such a iron fist that the only legitimate channel for political activity was al-Qaida and the extremist? That was the alternative to the Middle East that we are now seeing emerge. And of course this new Middle East is being born out of violence and difficulty and it’s hard but unless you get a different of Middle East, what you’ve done is you’ve ceded the ground to extremism. And the status quo was not stable in the Middle East.