Hailed as the cure for ill will toward Washington and other diplomatic problems at the United Nations, the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, was taken down a peg over the weekend, as his own — and his country’s — prestige were thrown into question. What will one of President Bush’s favorite operators do now? Mr. Khalilzad sold to the 15 members of the Security Council a resolution in support of the Palestinian Arab-Israeli negotiations at Annapolis. But he acted like a star quarterback who botched the signals, ran ahead with the football, got the backs and coaches all confused, and ended up with a big fat fumble for American diplomacy.

At the same time, last week’s lunch with financier George Soros at the tony restaurant of choice for U.N. dignitaries, L’Impero in Tudor City, raised concerns among Mr. Bush’s partisan loyalists — some of whom tell me Mr. Khalilzad may be looking for inroads into a future Clinton administration or a future appointment to a top U.N. position after the end of the Bush presidency — or even before.

Mr. Khalilzad may merely be interested in Mr. Soros’s Open Society operations in countries that are, as he often says, “of interest” to America.

But it is hard to fathom that Mr. Khalilzad told anyone at the White House — which he considers his power base, as opposed to the State Department — about that lunch. Mr. Soros may share Mr. Bush’s passion for spreading democracy to places where there is none, but he also has vowed to fight Republicans everywhere and to spend his vast fortune to unseat the president who appointed Mr. Khalilzad. When a crack Fox News camera crew caught the L’Impero lunch and posted it on their Web site, the video made the Washington rounds like a hot YouTube gossip bit.

Similarly, as someone at the State Department decided to add yet another coda to the Annapolis pomp by getting the Security Council to approve agreements achieved there, Mr. Khalilzad saw an easy opening. He quickly sold a half-baked resolution proposal to all 15 members of the council, including the Arab member, Qatar, hoping the resolution would pass during the council’s presidency of the largest Muslim country, Indonesia, which ended November 30. On Thursday, Mr. Khalilzad told reporters he had gained the council’s support for the proposed resolution. On Friday, as Mr. Khalilzad went to Washington for so-called prescheduled consultations (his name was included in a guest list at a White House holiday-related event), his deputy, Alejandro Wolff, was left to clean up the mess, leaving council members to marvel at America’s ineptitude. Oops, Mr. Wolff told them, after consulting with the Palestinian Arabs and the Israelis, we decided to withdraw our own resolution proposal.

Has nobody at the State Department or the American mission to the United Nations paid attention all these years? Why would Israel, which has always fought the “internationalization” of its diplomacy with Arab interlocutors, fall in love with a resolution in support of Annapolis now? Such an act would turn into enforceable international law the vague — and unrealistic — promise of creating a Palestinian Arab state by the end of 2008. The answer is that, of course, plenty of old hands in the diplomatic corps are experienced enough to recognize the Israeli sensitivities. Mr. Khalilzad, who replaced John Bolton as ambassador in January, however, is not one of them, and he appeared not to have consulted them.

Mr. Khalilzad has a talent for making inroads with America’s enemies, which may have made for strange lunch meetings even before Mr. Soros. A former top U.N. inside operator largely considered a foe by Washington, Pakistan’s Iqbal Riza, was the first man Mr. Khalilzad had for lunch as he moved into the official ambassador’s residence at the Waldorf-Astoria in April.

An oft-repeated maxim of Mr. Bolton — who wisely opted for graciousness, telling me over the weekend that he had “no comment” on Mr. Khalilzad’s new travails — was that good American U.N. ambassadors represent Washington’s interests at Turtle Bay, rather than explain the United Nations to Washington.

Mr. Khalilzad’s biggest challenge now is no longer to charm and defang external enemies of America and the Bush administration. After last week, he may need to use all his considerable talents to appease America’s closest allies — not to mention disenchanted Bush loyalists who believe he has violated Mr. Bolton’s maxim.

bavni@nysun.com