World Cup makes the UN green with envy

This 100 per cent strike-rate is remarkable given that only 46 per cent of nations are "free" (according to the 2006 survey from Freedom House). Further, this phenomenon cannot be dismissed as a Developed World-versus-Developing World anomaly. Senegal and Ghana have both proven that democratic, developing nations can succeed in the World Cup finals. Similarly, long-suffering nations in turmoil that have recently emerged from periods of tyranny, civil war or political chaos, such as Nigeria (post-General Abacha) and Yugoslavia (post-Dayton Accord) in 1998 and Ukraine (post-Orange Revolution) in 2006, have advanced to the second round.

During the Annan era, without exception, every single totalitarian, communist and Islamist World Cup finalist has yielded to their free and democratic rivals. Saudi Arabia (1998, 2002, 2006), Tunisia (1998, 2002, 2006), Iran (1998, 2006), Morocco (1998, when it still enforced strict Islamic Shariah laws), communist China (2002), Angola (2006), Togo (2006) and Ivory Coast (2006) all went home after the group phase.

Does the underlying political repression in a despotic nation prevent its players from fulfilling their potential? Or do democracies simply play a freer-flowing and better-coached version of the beautiful game? It is unclear whether this is the Bush Doctrine, or the Guus Doctrine, at work.

Regardless, recent World Cup history provides some interesting, albeit anecdotal, evidence of the strength and superiority of democratic systems. The UN seems to need constant reminding of this fact.

While the World Cup dispatches tyranny with brutal shrift, the UN's history is one of mollycoddling those elements that imperil democracy's survival - from its inability to show real strength against the nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran, to its passive observation of genocide in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Sudan, to its corrupt Oil-for Food dealings with Iraq, to its promotion of egregious human rights violators such as Libya, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Zimbabwe to its Human Rights Commission. The direct result of the UN's feebleness has been increased sectarian violence, impunity for gross human rights breaches and unchecked threats to regional and global security.

The UN, charged under its Charter with taking effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, should heed the ancient truth of history that this is only achieved by the vigorous promotion of the superiority of democracy and freedom, rather than by the insipid appeasement of despotism.

As the World Cup enters its final stages and the free nations of the world once more triumph over tyranny in Germany, let us hope that this is the lesson that Kofi Annan takes to heart.