Annan's finesse

AS SECRETARY general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan is the diplomats' diplomat. So it was fitting that when he addressed the UN General Assembly Tuesday, asking member states to confront actual and potential challenges to the guiding UN principle of collective security, Annan was forthright and precise without denigrating either side in a crucial dispute. To be sure, Annan did question the right of any one nation to launch a preemptive war, a right that President Bush in his own speech to the General Assembly described as being, in certain circumstances, an obligation. But Annan did not oversimplify the challenge to the ideal of collective security.