SPIEGEL: Is the secretary general the main referree?
Annan: He is a sort of referree, but without red and yellow cards. He cannot raise them, but he can raise his moral voice.
SPIEGEL: That is, at best, a yellow card.
Annan: You're right. A united Security Council would be a red card.
SPIEGEL: The biggest team, the United States, likes to play by its own rules.
Annan: There is a certain tendency on the part of some Americans to treat the UN as a multilateralism à la carte where you pick and choose where it suits you and when it doesn't suit you, you pull back. In Iraq, they want us to work closely with the Iraqis and lead an international compact for economic reform. They are within the UN on Iran and they are working closely with us on avian flu. In these cases they are working very closely with us because they have nowhere else to go. You cannot put together a coalition of the willing.
SPIEGEL: Have the Americans changed their behavior as a result of problems in Iraq?
Annan: There has been a very important lesson that everyone has learned from Iraq. Future American administrations will be much more hesitant to embark on a military action. It will also make Congress much more reluctant to appove military action and much more demanding of the justification and rationale for going to war.
SPIEGEL: It seems that every US generation in recent history has had to go through the experience of losing a war.
Annan: Yes, and it is a bit sad to put it that way. One has to learn from history. Quite frankly, it is almost impossible to have a sense of vision without a sense of history. If history is learned, then it doesn't have to repeat itself over generations.
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