On December 10 Secretary General Kofi Annan and the United Nations were awarded the Centennial Nobel Peace Prize. The citation commends Annan for "bringing new life to the organization," and it expresses the hope that the UN will serve "at the forefront" of the world's efforts to achieve peace and to meet its economic, social and environmental challenges. Whether or not it can hinges heavily on Washington, with which relations have been rocky in the recent past.

It is encouraging, therefore, that September 11 and the subsequent war against terrorism have caused the Bush Administration to discover the UN's utility. Annan, the UN Security Council and the General Assembly immediately and unequivocally condemned the attacks, and the Council adopted an antiterrorism resolution requiring all countries to report back regularly on their steps to implement its prohibitions against providing active or passive assistance to terrorists. Lakhdar Brahimi, Annan's special envoy for Afghanistan, has led the negotiations among Afghan factions to devise a political formula for governing the country. President Bush has not only encouraged the UN to play an active "nation-building" role in Afghanistan--a concept he disdained as recently as the 2000 electoral campaign--he also convened a White House meeting with Annan and his top team to discuss the many challenges that entails. For its part, the House of Representatives moved quickly after September 11 to release $582 million in back dues long owed the UN, while the Senate confirmed President Bush's choice of John Negroponte as US ambassador to the UN; both had been held up for months in Congress.

Do these affirmations of the UN, in Oslo and in Washington, mark the beginning of a new era in US/UN relations? At this point, few if any close observers have answered with a resounding yes. After all, it wasn't so long ago that the UN proved essential to the United States in the Gulf War and in imposing an unprecedented sanctions and weapons-inspection regime on Iraq. Yet that was followed by some of the worst times ever in the relationship.

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