NEW YORK // Words of advice on diplomatic etiquette offered by a top US official to Muammer Qadafi ahead of the Libyan leader's first UN appearance, could form part of a handbook to guide the many maverick attendees of the upcoming UN General Assembly. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, asked the veteran north African leader to "comport himself" before the 192-member body and when addressing the following day's US-backed Security Council disarmament summit. The strait-laced diplomat's words represent sage advice to the many global powerbrokers making the pilgrimage to midtown Manhattan for an annual event that has witnessed its fair share of faux pas. This year's General Assembly will see scores of oversized egos enter the UN's golden pulpit, with the opening day alone featuring Mr Qadafi, the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The US President Barack Obama is, of course, the headline act. They rank among an all-star cast of more than 120 world leaders expected to join the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on the riverside slice of international territory for a gruelling diplomatic marathon beginning on September 23. The US ambassador's counsel to Mr Qadafi involved being "respectful of the heads of state in attendance" and contributing to a "constructive meeting" on disarmament on September 24 - the first Security Council meeting ever chaired by a US president. Aware of Mr Qadafi's rambling and protracted oratories, Ms Rice politely reminded high-level envoys to the 15-nation body to "keep their remarks to five minutes or less". "We expect no less from Mr Qadafi," she told journalists, speaking last week upon assuming the council's rotating presidency for this month and laying the groundwork for Mr Obama's UN debut. During his first UN sojourn in four decades of leading Libya, Mr Qadafi is unlikely to miss an opportunity to raise Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal during disarmament talks. Ms Rice warned that straying from the theme would be "out of order and inappropriate". Her sternest recommendation, however, was for Mr Qadafi to tread carefully on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, coming in the wake of controversy over Abdel Basset al Megrahi, who was jailed in Scotland for downing the jet over Lockerbie in 1988. The Libyan official's release, on grounds of clemency due to terminal cancer, and jubilant cheering upon his arrival at Tripoli airport last month sparked outrage in the US, home to 189 of the blast's 270 victims. "Virtually every American has been offended by the reception accorded to Mr al Megrahi," said Ms Rice. "How Mr Qadafi chooses to comport himself has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not." Ms Rice was wise to lay down an etiquette rubric. It is only six months since the colonel publicly lashed out at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, saying the octogenarian was "propelled by fibs towards the grave and made by Britain and protected by the US". Wearing wraparound sunglasses and orange garb to the Doha summit, Mr Qadafi's address to the monarch did little to heal a six-year rift with the desert kingdom and reinforced his reputation as a diplomatic loose cannon. The UN has a history of transnational howlers, notably when Venezuela's firebrand President Hugo Chávez ascended the podium for the 2006 assembly after George W Bush. He described his US counterpart as "the devil" and complained of a smell of sulphur. Uganda's bellicose former president, Idi Amin, famously praised Edward Heath during the 1973 assembly by comparing the UK prime minister to Adolf Hitler. He later said: "Not Hitler, I meant Winston Churchill." Tempers flared at the height of the Cold War, with Nikita Khrushchev blasting a Filipino envoy as "a lackey of imperialism" and banging his shoe on a desk in 1960. Russian diplomats now claim the Soviet leader was playing to the audience during this disputed incident and had brought along a third shoe as his prop. UN staff rate this year's General Assembly as offering "almost a record number" of head honchos. Among them are wildcards such as Mr Ahmadinejad, whose description of Israel as the "most cruel and racist regime" sent 30 diplomats pacing out of a UN anti-racism meeting in April. Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, likewise, has a reputation for railing against Zimbabwe's one-time colonial masters in Britain. Mr Berlusconi's description of the new US president as "young, handsome and tanned" was derided by critics as racist and undiplomatic. Another guest, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, famously stormed from the stage of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, after arguing with the Israeli president Shimon Peres over that month's Gaza onslaught. Mr Ban has tied his leadership of the United Nations to the event's outcome, hoping a high-level climate change summit on September 22 will pave the way for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol at a December meeting in Copenhagen. Hopes are also being pinned on an unconfirmed meeting between Israel's new hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to be moderated by Mr Obama. For Jeffrey Laurenti, the world's more showy envoys to this year's General Assembly will likely be on their best behaviour as they size up the new kid on the block: Mr Obama. "This is the window to see whether Obama's dramatic change in mood - without, as of yet, a substantial change in policy - is going to show results," said the policy expert from The Century Foundation, a US-based think tank. "A high-level tantrum will not obscure what would be a concrete agreement on climate change targets. It will make great press, but the proof of any pudding is in its eating - and that it's being served at all." With so much at stake - and with so many unpredictable leaders in the house - it remains to be seen whether this year's meeting will go down in history for easing global strife or offering another episode in the ongoing cabaret of personality politics. jreinl@thenational.ae
