At the 73rd UN General Assembly this week, officials marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela by unveiling a statue of the former South African president at the organization’s headquarters in New York. During its inauguration, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was dedicated to peace, forgiveness, compassion and human dignity. The sculpture of the great leader should, the UN said, be a reminder to all nations “that our differences are to be celebrated.” Differences must be celebrated, indeed, but what ordinary citizens of the world require from their leaders at the General Assembly is more than just an agreement to differ. The people expect them to push the reset button to recalibrate and strengthen the world’s resilience in the face of many adversities. An economically weak and fractured world lacking a common vision spreads uncertainty and fear, whereas a world with leaders who can accept their differences and work toward the common good would spread faith and belief in a better future. A way to persuade more advocates of this basic paradigm, especially among world leaders today, remains elusive. Yes, the inevitable showdown between Iran and the US at the UN gathering takes at least part of the spotlight every year, but bringing the regime in Tehran back in from the cold should be a multilateral effort that involves Iran meeting the expectations its citizens first, including their right to stability and access to food and economic development. Iran’s revolutionary ethos unfortunately still drives its domestic and foreign-policy agenda through the sponsorship of terrorism, directly or through its agents, in the Middle East. In addition, Tehran boasts that it controls, through war and conflicts, four Arab capital cities, namely Beirut, Baghdad, Sanaa and Damascus. All of this while the Iranian leadership insists on developing nuclear capability and its ballistic-missile technology. This is despite the 2015 nuclear deal with the P5+1, an agreement from which the US withdrew this year. An economically weak and fractured world lacking a common vision spreads uncertainty and fear, whereas a world with leaders who can accept their differences and work toward the common good would spread faith and belief in a better future. Mohamed Chebaro The words chosen by Guterres at the opening session of this year’s assembly painted a grim picture of the state of a world rife with “trust deficiency” and unable to counter unilateralism and reinvigorate international cooperation, which is a key tenet and the founding principle of the UN charter. Many leaders in their speeches echoed the sentiments of Guterres, in addition highlighting the need to sound the alarm on climate change, to protect against the dangers of malicious actions in cyberspace, and to prevent the weaponization of artificial intelligence. All this, as well as the need to resolve the seven-year-old conflict in Syria, the three-year-old war in Yemen, and wars in Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali and Congo. They also warned that the resurgence of state-sponsored propaganda, which has flourished in the age of social media and fake news, must be tamed, and the use of chemical weapons in conflicts, or to assassinate opponents on the streets of other nations, must be stopped. The 133 world leaders, and many more officials, from 193 members states have gathered at the UN supposedly to look at these issues. But the UN has changed, becoming an international organization of good auspices that is toothless and frowned upon. Everyone agrees that reports of genocides, civil wars and targeted killing have been passing through UN offices without anyone blinking. UN officials, like the member states that formed the organization 73 years ago, are failing in their responsibility to protect the weak, feed the hungry and hold to account the criminals. The global organization has been a spectator, watching the return to our streets of socially sensitive issues from the past such as racism, anti-semitism and populism. The reminders by the secretary-general, and his appeal to world leaders to work together toward greater solidarity in advancing peace, human rights and sustainable development, are likely to fall on deaf ears. Our leaders, all of them, are now distracted by slogans and side shows such as America First, Brexit, a resurgent Russia, a tariff-challenged China, and unilateralism and protectionism everywhere. None of them are able to open a door to multilateralism and work toward the common good to provide predictability and stability in this increasingly turbulent world. The repercussions of missing yet another global opportunity to realign visions toward peace will be dire and ensure that stability and development remain far-fetched goals in many regions of the world in the face of rising uncertainty, fear and diminished levels of faith in our world, its people and its leaders. Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point-of-view