Stardate 20030814.1813

(On Screen): Sometimes diplospeak can approach the incomprehensible. For instance, there is this statement from Syria's ambassador to the UN:

We are supporting the United Nations' vital role to be more vital.

After the US and UK gave up screwing around with the UN, and occupied Iraq, there was much disgruntlement especially in Paris and Berlin and Moscow. They had spent most of a year trying to wrap the US in chains, and had totally failed.

They've been disappointed a lot lately. They didn't manage to prevent us from attacking. There was no blood bath. It didn't turn into a quagmire.

They weren't able to force us after the war to give primary control over Iraqi reconstruction to the UN. (The public face of that disagreement had to do with statements about how "important" and "central" the UN role would be." Answer: not very damned central or important. Specifically, the UN was not granted any ability whatever to veto the actions of the American-led occupation force.)

Deep down, they still hoped, however. We had a lot of troops in Iraq and seemed to want other nations to help out, and had been talking to them about sending forces. Other nations hoped that if they stood firm they could force the US to return to the UN, and grovel a bit. They hoped we'd accept a new UNSC resolution which would actually give the UN significant power, which is to say so that the UN would actually be able to screw up American plans. The idea was that this would be the price to be extracted from the US in exchange for enough diplomatic cover so that other nations would be willing to send troops to help.

Late in July, the announcements started hitting the papers. France said it would support a UNSC resolution as long as it backed a "true international partnership" (i.e. something that could override the US). Kofi Annan came out in favor of a much more broad UN role. Russia supported the French.

And there were rumors that behind the scenes, the US was getting desperate and might be willing to make a deal. And there was much private chortling and gloating: the US had overextended itself, and was being humbled. Soon Bush would crawl back and admit he'd been wrong.

Well, there was a new UNSC resolution proposed, but it wasn't about changing the UN role, except cosmetically. It had to do with giving international recognition to the new Iraqi ruling council. It was submitted on Tuesday, and the US asked for a vote today on it, and it passed 14-0 with Syria abstaining.

It established a United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, to perform the job currently being performed by a special ambassador. It didn't expand the UN mandate.

And US public statements continue to make clear that the Administration takes a dim view of giving the UN enough power to cause havoc. (Which means they're stuck with continuing to try to encourage insurrection as their only way of causing havoc.)

Unfortunately, yet again Tigger refused to be unbounced.

The primary UNSC resolution which governs the situation right now gave the French and Russians essentially none of what they demanded. When it was debated and passed in May, the main incentive for us to deal with the UN was that the trade sanctions against Iraq hadn't been lifted, and that is part of what that resolution did. But it didn't give the UN any real power over post-war Iraq, nor did it preserve any of the French and Russian sweetheart deals.

So all this time they've been hoping that the occupation would turn into a quagmire and that the US would start looking for relief and a way out, and would eventually come back to the UN, humble itself there, and actually give the UN enough true authority and control to prevent the US from accomplishing its long term strategic goals there.

As part of the negotiation of today's relatively unimportant resolution, there were yet more demands for expansion of the UN's role in Iraq. But those making those demands are not really in a very good negotiating position at this point, which is why they didn't get anything.

In the mean time, the diplomatic statements about this whole business continue to approach the absurd.

In engineering documentation, we prize clarity and lack of ambiguity. The idea is for the author to accurately communicate. But in diplomacy, they tend to shade words, and often seek words which are deliberately ambiguous. I think that the enormous vocabulary of English must be particularly prized by diplomats, who can amuse themselves arguing over whether the UN role was to be "central", or "vital", or perhaps "essential". Or maybe "primary".

Which is why the Syrian ambassador made this marvelous statement: We are supporting the United Nations' vital role to be more vital. Given that "vital" is a digita