Stardate 20021107.1606

(On Screen): All diplomacy is always successful. Every diplomat always wins. It doesn't matter what actually happens; when a diplomat finishes he'll always declare victory and claim that he got what he wanted out of the diplomacy.

France is proclaiming victory in the negotiations in the UNSC, but they're lying because they can't admit that they blinked. The AP reports:

French diplomats said the compromise was reached through negotiations at the United Nations and in telephone calls between President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac over the last day.

According to French diplomats, the United States agreed to change wording in a key provision that would declare Iraq in "material breach" of its U.N. obligations. The change addresses French and Russian concerns that the original wording would have let the United States determine on its own whether Iraq had committed an infraction. Such a determination, France and Russia feared, would have triggered an attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

"The Security Council will now be the ones to decide whether Iraq is in material breach," said a French diplomat, on condition of anonymity.

That was always the point of contention: France wanted to require a second UNSC resolution after Iraqi failure to comply before hostilities could begin, but a careful reading of the latest text doesn't support the claim by the French diplomat. The UNSC will not make the decision as to whether Iraq is in "material breach".

First of all, if Saddam doesn't actually consent in 7 days, then he's in material breach, and no UNSC action is required. If the required report isn't complete at 30 days, there's material breach. If the report turns out to be incomplete or incorrect, there's material breach. None of those things require any action by the UNSC, nor do they required reports from UNMOVIC.

But even if those things happen on schedule, and if it then turns out that the Iraqis try to impede the inspections in any way, the resolution says that these things will be reported to the UNSC for further deliberation but does not require UNSC action, which is what France's "six words" would have. That's based on section 4:

Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the council for assessment in accordance with paragraph 11 and 12 below.

It will be a material breach and it will be reported to the UNSC, but it will already be a material breach before the UNSC receives the report. (The term "material breach" is diplo-speak for "justification for war".) The UNSC will "assess" it, but the breach will already be a fact.

Which would seem to put the spotlight on Dr. Blix. Some of what I've been reading elsewhere seems to suggest that this basically puts him in the position of deciding whether there will be a war, and suggests that he's a pussy and that he won't actually report the things he should because of that. The fear is that responsibility will hang heavy on him and that he'll be particularly tolerant of Iraqi misdeeds because he won't want to take responsibility for starting the war.

But the resolution actually gives coequal status in every way to the IAEA, and the director general of the IAEA also has the ability to report violations. And it should probably be clear that if Dr. Blix's subordinates think he's wussing out and not reporting violations, they'll almost certainly go public with it. (And such violations will be "material breaches" even if Dr. Blix hasn't officially told the UNSC about them.) Moreover, I have a suspicion that Dr. Blix is going to be receiving some private and unofficial communication from the US and UK regarding the fact that he reports the news but does not make the news, and that he does not have the choice of deciding whether any given failure of compliance is sufficiently serious to report.

Finally, the fact of "material breach" doesn't actually require the report. It's a material breach when it's committed, not when the UNSC hears about it. Dr. Blix isn't going to be the one to make that decision, any more than will the UNSC.

All of which is ultimately moot, because I think the chance the inspections actually mattering is low. I think there's at least a 50% chance that the government of Iraq won't consent, and thus that the game will end at the 7-day deadline. And if Iraq does say at 7 days that it will comply, I think there is 19 chances in 20 that the report required at 30 days either "won't be ready; we need more time" or else that it will be substantially incomplete or incorrect, which will also be enough.

A couple of weeks later, we'll end the game. It will take that long to make careful decisions about what kind of intelligence information to reveal which will be sufficient politically to prove that the report is inadequate without seriously compromising critical sources of information. (It's likely to rely heavily on satellite photographs and information from Iraqi defectors, primarily for that reason.)

Ever since last summer, I've thought