Claudia Rosett skewers Kofi Annan’s plans for the UN quite well.

“The grand failure of the U.N. is that its system, its officials and most visibly its current secretary-general are still stuck in the central-planning mindset that was the hallmark of dictators and failed utopian dreams of the previous century. Mr. Annan's plan takes little practical account of a modern world in which competition, private enterprise and individual freedom are the principles of progress. He has his own agenda, which he would like the rest of us to follow and fund. The words sound lofty: "development, security, and human rights for all." The devil is in the details, and because this is a blueprint for the future of the entire earth, that means a lot of room for big trouble. This report is not a benign document.”

I tend to think that the UN is unreformable, and that the best the US can do is to cripple it with a permanent veto. There are so many other supra-national institutions and organizations that can be used to achieve many of the functions of the UN. There is absolutely no reason why housing them all under one roof would be better, from a democratic point of view, or from a pragmatic point of view.