Trashing the UN

So according to Google News, there are now 500 news stories about how awful the UN is and how Kofi Annan should resign - like this one Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Annan is a symptom of UN's sickness...
So what provoked this sudden outburst of indignation at the UN -- from a press which has given the Bush administration a free pass on everything from the Saudi-911 connection to Abu Gharib to Halliburton?
Well, I think there are three reasons:
First, Kofi Annan dissed Bush when he described the Iraq war as illegal, and Bush will never forgive such a remark.
Second, the Iraq elections, if they are even held at all, are going to be a disaster. There will be so many problems with the vote that the UN will have a hard time accepting Iraq's newly "elected" leader as legitimate -- if it is, for example, our old pal Chalabis. So trashing the UN now will reduce its credibility in questioning of the Iraq "vote".
Third, and likely most important, the Bush administration is gearing up for war with Iran in 2005 or 2006. The Security Council is so far refusing to get suckered in to any sanction resolutions which the US could later use as justification for another preemptive war. So discrediting the UN becomes an important opening salvo in the PR campaign to convince the American public to go along with the new Iran war.
Depressing, isn't it.