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February 24th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Critics accused Mr Annan of being naive, seeing his conviction that even the most obstinate dictator could be moved by persuasion alone as foolhardy. They argued that, far from improving the situation, the Ghanaian had allowed himself to be outfoxed by dictators whose sole intention was to buy time.
Some will fear that Mr Assad will do the same, pretending to be amenable to the new envoy’s advances in order to buy diplomatic cover for continued repression.
A two-term secretary-general who stepped down in 2006, Mr Annan’s career at the helm of the UN was bookended by arguably his greatest disaster and his greatest triumph.
In 2004, as head of UN peacekeeping operations, he was accused of ignoring repeated warnings from Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general commanding peacekeeping forces in Kigali, that massacres were being planned against Rwanda’s Tutsi population. Pleas for reinforcement were also ignored, both by Mr Annan and the UN Security Council.
Over the course of 100 days, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in the swiftest genocide of modern history. It was the biggest blot on his reputation and Mr Annan has spent the rest of his career trying to atone for it.
“I believed at that time that I was doing my best,” he said 10 years later. “But I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.”
In early 2008, he won partial redemption after successfully brokering an end to a bloody outbreak of violence in Kenya following a disputed election. Within the space of 10 days, more than 1,000 people had been killed in politically-motivated tribal clashes, leading to many to believe that Kenya, once seen as one of Africa’s most stable states, was doomed to repeat the experiences of Rwanda.
But Mr Annas persuaded Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, and Raila Odinga, the opposition leader widely believed to have been robbed of election victory by government-sponsored rigging, to share power and end the violence. He was hailed as a hero by many Kenyans as a result.
Mr Annan, however, commanded a degree of respect in Africa that he lacks in the Middle East. Although many Arabs commended him for opposing the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is likely to have much less influence in the region than he enjoys on the continent of his birth.
Mr Annan’s appointment was widely praised on Friday, with Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, calling him a “real pro”. But with the international community divided, and Mr Assad continuing to enjoy the support of Russia and China, there seems little chance of the Syrian leader heeding the new envoy unless he comes with more than just skilled words.
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