Stardate 20030225.1734

(Captain's log): In my comments yesterday about the new UNSC resolution, all I can say is that that's what I get when I look at a half-full glass on a day when I'm feeling empty. I'm still feeling pretty empty today but I'll try to do better.

It looks as if those who composed this new UNSC resolution were actually trying to do exactly what it was I wanted them to do, but they may have phrased it in a way which makes it even harder for someone in good faith (which basically leaves out the current French government) to oppose it. For instance, Live from Brussels points out that the way it's phrased it bypasses entirely such questions as "can we actually disarm them through more inspections without full Iraqi cooperation?" or "Well, even if they're in material breach, is it a serious enough 'material breach' to really justify war?"

Instead, it forces the discussion to be about whether Iraq is cooperating fully. Clearly Iraq isn't. So the proposed resolution states that the UNSC

Decides that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it resolution 1441.

Since Res 1441 demanded things like "full cooperation" and tended to pile the emphatic adjectives onto nearly any other demand (e.g. "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access") then claims of partial cooperation mean that Iraq has not taken the final opportunity granted to it.

Further, by referring to Res 1441 as the "final opportunity" it forestalls any discussion of what kind of new offer should be made to Iraq, since the last time was the final offer.

And perhaps the situation is more upbeat also in that they're finally starting to take off the diplomatic kid gloves. An article at the Washington Post says that the US government is telling UNSC members unequivocally that we're going to attack no matter what the UNSC does, and that they can be on the train or under it when it leaves the station.

In meetings yesterday with senior officials in Moscow, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told the Russian government that "we're going ahead," whether the council agrees or not, a senior administration official said. "The council's unity is at stake here."

A senior diplomat from another council member said his government had heard a similar message and was told not to anguish over whether to vote for war.

"You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not."

Even more promising is that our ambassador to France has delivered a veiled threat there, publicly. This isn't Perle making unofficial comments; it's Ambassador Leach who is our official diplomatic representative speaking:

"I hope that we will continue to work together," said Leach, in comments dubbed into French by the television station. "I hope, in any case, there won't be a veto because a veto, to my mind, would be very unfriendly and we wouldn't look very kindly upon it."

...which may or may not be exactly what he said, because it's the AP's English translation of the French dub of Leach's interview in France where he spoke in English. Even so, his message that "We're looking at you, France" is the kind of thing they need to start hearing. It would have been nice if it had been even more blunt, but it was combined with another of Perle's on-the-record/off-the-record comments to the effect that the US saw France as being on Iraq's side, and that French support for Iraq is based on venal self interest rather than any kind of high manifestation of ethics:

Perle agreed that support for war in Britain and America would rise if there were a second resolution, and that the UN was 'a symbol of international legitimacy'. But in words that will serve only to deepen the transatlantic rift over Iraq, he added: 'These five countries, the permanent members of the Security Council, are not a judicial body. They're not expected to make moral or legal judgments, but to advance the respective interests of their countries.

'So if the French ambassador gets up and expresses the position of the government of France, what you are hearing is the moral authority of Jacques Chirac, whatever that may mean.

'What you're hearing is what the French President perceives to be in the interests of France. And the French President has found his own way of dealing with Saddam Hussein. It would be counter to French interests to destroy that cosy relationship, and replace it with a hostile one.

'So how much legitimacy attaches to a French veto? At some point, people are going to have to start asking themselves that question.'

In Perle's view, the French position against regime change in Iraq is fatally undermined by its multi-billion-dollar oil interests negotiated since the last Gulf war: 'There's certainly a large French commercial interest in Iraq, and there are contracts that a new government in Iraq