The 59th General Assembly of the UN will listen carefully to George Bush this week, writes Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent.
When Brian Cowen meets George Bush tomorrow evening at a reception in the elegant Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan, hosted by the president and his wife, Laura, both men will be thinking about their future. Unless the pundits and the bookmakers are wildly mistaken, Mr Cowen will soon be moving to a new job in the Department of Finance, whereas George Bush is campaigning actively to retain his present job in the White House.
Either way, both of them are speaking at the 59th UN General Assembly this week. Indeed, by tomorrow evening Mr Bush will already have given his oration, whereas Mr Cowen is not due to step onto the podium until Thursday evening.
His audience will hang on every word Mr Bush says because, whether they like it or not, he is the leader of the world's only superpower. The annual "debate" of world leaders at the general assembly has little in common with the Oxford Union or our own L&H or "Hist". There is no cut and thrust, and points of order or information are not taken, as the heads of state and government or their foreign ministers come on stage, make their pitch and leave.
But pins will be heard dropping while President Bush speaks. This is an election year and the podium of the general assembly is a golden opportunity to get your message across to the electorate, a centre-stage slot that any politician would relish in the middle of a campaign.
A man who clearly enjoys being on the hustings, Mr Bush will make the most of his spell in the spotlight. But some of the gloss has already been taken off the occasion by the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, who said in response to repeated questioning in a recent BBC interview that the war in Iraq was "illegal" under the terms of the UN charter. Mr Annan's spokesman played down the remark afterwards but at least one partisan of the White House accused the secretary general of "interference" in the presidential election.
We can expect Mr Bush to stand four-square behind the Iraqi venture, although even he must be having concerns about the increasing level of violence and rising US casualties. But he will also seek to display a more compassionate side and he told listeners to his weekly radio address on Saturday: "I will talk about the great possibilities of our time to improve health, expand prosperity and extend freedom in our world."
This presumably means he will touch on issues such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, his vision of "economic freedom", and the need to promote democracy and good governance in the developing world. He will almost certainly highlight Sudan where, according to his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, genocide is being carried out in the Darfur region. And he will probably again draw parallels between recent acts of terror in Russia and the dangers facing the US.
But Mr Bush gave no foretaste of his likely attitude to UN reform, which will be one of the key themes of this year's general assembly. A high-level expert panel was set up last year by Kofi Annan and, although its findings are not due for delivery until December 1st, many world leaders will be giving their thoughts on the subject during the next two weeks.
At the UN, the Security Council is supposed to call the shots, both literally and metaphorically. But there has long been simmering dissatisfaction over the make-up of the council, particularly the fact that five members have permanent seats and a veto on crucial issues.
These are the five victorious powers in the second World War: China, France, Russia, the UK and US. The other 10 members of the council are elected for a two-year term, as Ireland was for 2000-2002, and they don't have a veto.
An intense campaign has been under way to expand the council, particularly the number of permanent members, and to restrict, redistribute, extend or dilute the veto.
Brazil and Japan have agreed, in a joint declaration last week, to back one another in the campaign for a permanent seat, and this mutual solidarity arrangement is likely to include Germany and India before long. There are also suggestions that the African continent should get a permanent seat, possibly on a rotating basis between South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. But there are fears that too many seats at the table could result in paralysis, particularly if the power of veto is extended to new permanent members.
Brian Cowen has already declared his strong support for UN reform but is unlikely to go into precise mathematical detail in his speech on Thursday. However, since it is almost certainly his last outing at the general assembly as foreign minister, his speech is likely to strike a valedictory note based on his experiences since he first addressed the UN four years ago.
In addition to the need for more effective global security, he is likely to highlight the plight of sub-Saharan Africa, where the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN for reducing poverty and checking the spread of HIV/AIDS seem to be receding badly.
On the Middle East, he is expected to emphasise the need for any Gaza withdrawal by the Israelis to be carried out in the context of the Road Map: in other words, it must be "Gaza First" and not "Gaza Only" and closing the settlements on the Strip should not be accompanied by expansion on the West Bank. At the same time, he is likely to express strong condemnation of suicide attacks, as well as criticising the Palestinian side for failure to reform its internal security and exert proper control over militants.
On past form, it would be astonishing if the Minister criticised US policy on Iraq, although the thrust of his speech will be that collective, multilateral action in a crisis is nearly always preferable to unilateral initiatives.