Stardate 20030408.0729

(On Screen): Last fall, as part of the process of getting Res 1441 passed through the UNSC, they engaged in what at the time was referred to as "creative ambiguity" in the wording in particular about whether a second resolution would be required before there could actually be war. (Guess what? It wasn't!)

Bush and Blair just met in Northern Ireland to talk about post-war Iraq. Blair's been trying to get Bush to accept the idea that the UN should largely be in control afterwards, and on this Bush hasn't been budging. But there does seems to be an attempt to give Blair at least a rhetorical win. (Diplomacy is always successful.) So coming out of the meeting both of them announced that the UN would have a "vital role" in Iraq.

What that doesn't mean is that the UN actually will control the interim administration. And it doesn't mean that the UN bureaucracy gets to decide who gets post-war reconstruction contracts, so that it can assign the majority of them to French companies.

What it means is that the British and Americans are going to set up interim governments and get on with the job, UNSC action or no UNSC action. Which means that Bush didn't budge.

Which means that TotalFinaElf is going to be out on its ear. Watch for major moves on the French stock market today.

When pressed on what precisely the U.N. role would be, however, Bush mentioned only humanitarian work, "suggesting" people to staff the interim authority and helping Iraq "progress."

He did not spell out how much power the U.N. would have, an omission likely to alarm some in Europe and the Arab world.

Neither did Bush elaborate on Washington's plans to place U.S. officials alongside Iraqis in the interim administration.

Picking up on foreign concerns, Blair pleaded with the world to avoid "endless diplomatic wrangles" over the future of Iraq like the damaging international dispute that preceded the war.

The British leader, who has stood by Bush throughout the crisis, said the world could be reassured that the "new Iraq" after the war would be run by the Iraqi people, not by Britain, the United States or the U.N.

Unlike the last few rounds of diplomatic wrangling, time is no longer on the weasels' side. British and American administrators are beginning that process now.

The big question, of course, is what it means to say that the UN would play a "vital role". Bush thinks it means that agencies like the World Food Program and UNICEF will be heavily involved in distribution of humanitarian aid. Chirac thinks it means that the UN will actually be in charge and will make all the critical decisions, with the US having no more influence over them than any other UN veto power. Blair has been telling everyone what he thinks they want to hear, and it's a game he isn't going to be able to keep playing for very much longer.

Tony Blair is facing a stark choice: he's got to decide between France and the US, because he is not going to be able to bridge the gap between them. If he tries too hard to work on bridging, he's going to lose them both. Blair is facing a crisis: he's going to have to admit soon that his vision of post-nationalist internationalism is as dead as Saddam Hussein.

Bush has all the cards. We're going to get on with it, UN or no UN. Bush still cares about trying to give Blair cover, but on the critical issues Bush seems to have given away nothing, and I don't think he's going to budge from this position, any more than he has from any of the others when he's really made a decision. This particular creative ambiguity won't, ultimately, be any more successful than the last one was, but it may serve to reduce the heat on Blair for a day or two. Creative ambiguity is ultimately a form of obfuscation, and does nothing more than defer the reckoning.

As events unfold, and as our administrators move in and begin work without even making an attempt at asking the UN for approval or asking the UN to participate in anything beyond distribution of food and medicine, Blair is eventually going to face the music: The UN role might be "vital" but the UN won't be in charge and won't have the power to make any important decisions over the objections of the US. Bush isn't going to permit things to get gummed up again by endless kibitzer vetos. And it's eventually going to become clear that as a practical matter Blair has chosen to side with Bush, mostly because he really has no other choice. As a practical matter, Blair really made that decision more than a year ago, but he hasn't actually faced up to the consequences of it in public yet. The fiction of a British bridge between Europe and America won't survive for very much longer.