Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

On Syria, Names Include Brahimi, Brundtland & Ogata, Unrealistic Baradei

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 9 -- After Kofi Annan quit, who wants to take on Syria's Mission Impossible? The names circulating at the UN are mostly blasts from the past.

  Long time UN insider Lakhdar Brahimi is among the most mentioned. There was a burst of interest in Mohamad El Baradei but to Inner City Press this seemed unrealistic.

  Just as Russia put the kibosh on Finland's Martti Ahtisaari when Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Inner City Press, "No, no, he is in deep retirement" -- this exclusive was credited to Inner City Press in Finnish media, click here for that -- many in the US, especially on the right, are no fans of El Baradei.

  This Syria envoy position is not worth even half a news cycle going negative for campaigner Obama.

   And so among the wackier names buzzing in the UN are too long ago officials: Gro Harlem Brundtland, now 72, and Sadako Ogata, who worked for the UN refugee agency up to 2000. Neither seems realistic, who with Ban Ki-moon, who knows? Watch this site.