While Syria was prescribing its special brand of “stability” for Iraq (see post below), the UN’s Kofi Annan took time out this weekend from collecting prizes in Switzerland to phone both Syria’s Bashar Assad and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urging them both to promote “stability” in Lebanon. The rulers of Iran and Syria are, of course, by their own murderous totalitarian lights doing exactly that — by way of abetting Hezbollah’s bid to hijack the Lebanese state. The UN reports, in phrases so bland they could be bottled and sold as white-out, that Annan “urged them to counsel the parties concerned to exercise patience and resolve their differences through dialogue.” If Annan wants to use his ample stage and taxpayer-funded UN machinery to play peacemaker, why doesn’t he stop dignifying Damascus and Tehran with phone calls that imply they are part of the solution, and instead explain to the world public that these thugs, with their mix of money, weapons, and terrorist-support networks, are actively promoting the havoc?