UN Chief's Bungled Iran Invitation Hurts His Role Ban Ki-moon made a rare effort at solo diplomacy when he invited Iran to join this week's Syria peace talks, but it backfired, raising questions about the effectiveness of a U.N. secretary-general better known - and often criticized - for his reserved and scripted style. No one has said publicly what was said during Ban's intense weekend of negotiations with Iran's foreign minister, but Ban's spokesman, Farhan Haq, said the secretary-general had an "oral understanding" with Iran and believed that a "more concrete," written understanding would follow on the terms of its attendance at the peace talks. Ban told reporters on Wednesday, "Unfortunately, I was not able to get the firm confirmation from the Iranian government at the last minute." Iran instead declared that it would attend only without preconditions. The whirlwind 24 hours ended up angering all sides, including the United States and Russia, and jeopardized the fragile talks when Syria's opposition threatened to drop out. On Monday, Ban withdrew the invitation. "Certainly he was misled," a Security Council diplomat said. Though Ban's office has said he kept the U.S. and other key states informed throughout his talks with Iran, the blame has fallen on him. The secretary-general's bad week continued Wednesday when the tense talks began in Montreux, Switzerland. Ban repeatedly asked Syria's foreign minister to step away from the podium when he exceeded his time limit. I live in Syria," Walid al-Moallem snapped, ignoring the U.N. chief's appeal. Well into his second five-year term as the world's top diplomat, Ban has ended up looking "a bit naive," said Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on the United Nations. In this particular incident (with Iran), he miscalculated. But perhaps he miscalculated his powers of persuasion, which didn't seem too strong to begin with," Patrick said. Changing Iran's stance "is beyond the power of any one individual who, as some wits have said, is more secretary and less general," he said. This isn't the first time that Ban, a career diplomat from South Korea, has been in the harsh spotlight since taking his current post in 2007. Two leaked memos since then have taken sharp aim at his skills, with Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul writing in 2009 that Ban "seems to function quite well when he sticks to a script" but has problems when he is "on his own." A year later, a memo by the outgoing under-secretary-general for oversight, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, said the organization Ban leads "is in a process of decay" and "drifting into irrelevance." Ban, whose approach has been described as "quiet diplomacy," came into the job well aware of how he would likely be seen by the international community, especially following the more charismatic Kofi Annan. "Sometimes I may look like a soft, weak leadership," Ban told The Associated Press shortly before becoming secretary-general. You may look at me as a soft person, but I have inner strength. How he has grown into the job since then is the question as he tries to nudge Syria's bloody conflict toward peace.