This year the Nobel Peace Prize committee got it stunningly right when it honored the United Nations and Secretary General Kofi Annan. For all its bureaucratic and political timidity, the UN has kept alive and vital the idea of collective action for peace by the nations of the world that was central to its founding--an idea of particular importance right now as the world struggles to find a way to deal with terrorism. Despite being handicapped by US indifference, if not hostility, it has made a major contribution in places like East Timor and Cambodia and has galvanized international action on problems like small arms and AIDS.

Central to the UN's renewed credibility on the world stage has been the leadership of Kofi Annan, which has elevated morale within the organization and won the trust of its 189 fractious members. Annan has exhibited a talent for soothing the tender egos of potentates and chieftains jealous of their sovereignty--including the US Congress, whose members he charmed into paying up a portion of America's back dues.

Of course, much of what the UN has accomplished in recent years has been in spite of the United States, which has used it to advance parochial interests or dumped it whenever it wanted to act unilaterally. This do-it-our-way-or-we're-picking-up-our-marbles relationship is unworthy of the UN's importance. It is also contrary to America's national interest.

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