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GUEST: Phyllis Bennis, Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author of numerous books on the Middle East and US foreign policy including “Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power”

UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, delivered his farewell address as Secretary General of the United Nations earlier this week. At the end of the month, Annan will end his 10-year leadership of the United Nations. During his speech, he made a veiled criticism of the United States, saying, “No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over all others … We all share responsibility for each other’s security, and only by working to make each other secure can we hope to achieve lasting security for ourselves.” Annan has been criticized for failing to act on the on-going genocide in Darfur, Sudan, the threat of nuclear-weapons development in Iran, as well as for earlier episodes such as the oil-for-food scandal during the sanctions against Iraq. Annan’s own critical assessment of the United Nations include failure to deal with “an unjust world economy, world disorder, and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law” which “have not resolved, but sharpened” under his watch.