This must have hurt

Via a posting on American Thinker we can find this article in the New York Sun about the latest report to the UN Security Council by that organization's special envoy to Iraq (well, actually Baghdad, as he does not seem to spend too much time away from the protected areas), Steffan de Mistura. It is astonishingly upbeat, given that the UN's attitude to that war was summed up by the last SecGen, Kofi Annan, according to whom, unseating Saddam was "illegal".

Even so, the upbeat mood is slightly peculiar:

In the most upbeat assessment by a U.N. official since America invaded Iraq, Secretary-General Ban's top envoy in Baghdad, Steffan de Mistura, told the Security Council yesterday that it "cannot ignore the recent improvements" in Iraq since last year's troop surge.

Mr. de Mistura, who arrived in Baghdad last fall, acknowledged that Iraqis and the coalition forces still face serious "challenges" in the near future, but in yesterday's periodic report to the council, he noted marked progress since last year and said the security situation has not only improved but that there have been "welcome steps towards national reconciliation and inclusive political dialogue," though "tentative and overdue."

One can almost hear the grinding of the teeth in that "cannot ignore the recent improvements". Oh how they would like to ignore and for how long they have managed to do so. It has just become impossible for the UN just as it has become impossible for the American MSM (though ours is still doing well on that) to ignore those improvements.

It is also interesting to know that the UN's gopher thinks that those "welcome steps towards national reconciliation and inclusive dialogue" are still sadly tentative and terribly overdue. Um, says who?