How risible and despicable: In addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump once again bragged that “while others have spoken of peace, I have made peace.” Then he rattled off the “eight” wars he has supposedly settled, before boasting about the war he waged and won against Venezuela and defending the war he is waging, but seems unable to win, against Iran, even musing about whether to “annihilate” it.

When he refers to “others” who only speak about peace, Trump means the United Nations, which he and his MAGA followers never miss an occasion to belittle. Therein lies a non sequitur that strikes at the foundation of the UN and the international system it represents: The American president in fact resembles his Russian counterpart in accelerating the decline of the UN system, which both hold in contempt.

Trump and Vladimir Putin each lead one of the so-called P5, or permanent and veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council. (The others are China, Britain and France.) In theory, the council is the body meant to safeguard the UN Charter and prevent another major war.

In practice, Trump and Putin have themselves violated that charter, by attacking sovereign states such as Iran and Ukraine. And there is nothing the UN or its secretary general, Antonio Guterres, can do about it, no matter how much they “speak” about peace.

The UN system is “rotting from the head down,” Richard Gowan, an expert at the International Crisis Group, told me, where the head is not the secretary general but those P5, and in particular America and Russia.

That’s a crucial insight as this year’s UN General Assembly in New York is consumed not only by the world’s multiplying conflicts but also by the search for a successor to Guterres, whose term expires at the end of the year.

The race to succeed him is wide open, with seven candidates. The current front-runners are Rebeca Grynspan, a former vice president of Costa Rica who has been running the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, the permanent representative to the UN of Guyana. That suggests the next secretary........

© Bloomberg