They don't believe it will be ineffectual. I hope they're wrong, but I'm pessimistic (which makes me a good conservative, I suppose).

OK, so now we know the score. Thanks for the heads up, guys. We have now "done" the UN route as far as it's gonna be done.



Moving right along now.......



It will, however, be interesting to see how the UN functions over the next year or so, and beyond. It will be quite some time before the US takes any matter of great importance before it, however.



As I have been saying, and worrying about... when we are on the other side of Iraq (and maybe Korea, I just can't say where that will go), the "better world is possible" brigades had better roll up their sleeves and crack open their wallets.... because they will have a LOT of work ahead, and it will be most interesting to see how their mantra, as expressed so eloquently by Sheryl Crow, plays out on planet earth. ("The anwer is not to have any enemies!" Um, OK, Sheryl, that's reeeeeally helpful. You're so cute!)



Maybe it is time for the US to start taking others at their word. You want less US in general? You'll get it. As the Boy Scouts say, "Be prepared".

So what do you do? You declare victory (rely on the first 17 resolutions) not to force them to veto it -- a la Kosovo? Or you do force a vote and then defy it? Pros/Cons of each?

Make 'em vote, I say. Let the world see who stands where.

I agree make them vote. I'm less confident of a win than PJ. Right now it appears 4 solid yes (US, UK, Spain, Bulgaria) and maybe 4 solid nos (Russia, France, Germany, China). Mexico and Chile should go with US but I don't have any idea how Pakistan and the other small nations will go.

Agree PJ that these countries wouldn't want to go against the US but look what Turkey did.

Turkey didn't vote against the US. It was 264-251 with 19 abstentions and an idiotic rule regarding those abstentions. Methinks a lot of the no-voters wanted to feel good, counting on their colleagues to vote yes in sufficient numbers as to approve the deal.

OJ



Ineffectual??



They seem effective to me. They are

giving me a pain in the ass.

Letting them vote will be just like providing the rope with which they will hang themselves.



Regards,

Jeff Guinn

Remind me again just what Bush gained by futzing around with these capons for the last umpteen months?



Gen. Fox Connor told the Army War College in 1934 that he would rather fight a coalition of 2 than a single enemy and would rather fight a coalition of 3 than a coalition of 2.



That's what I (and Clausewitz) have been saying for close to 200 years, but I just discovered Connor's remark in a new book, by Gole, "Road to Rainbow."

MAKE THEM VOTE!



Let's clear the air of rhetoric, establish the record and let it speak for itself. Who's in and who's out? It won't change the course of what's going to happen, it will merely set in concrete who was on which side when it did.



We can't afford and don't DARE show the rest of the world all of what we really know. We've probably already shown them too much......and that, by their estimation, hasn't been enough to justify our course.



So, rather than risk further incrimination of our own intel sources and capabilities, along with providing the devious madman more time to stall/manuver, we need to get in there and get the job done.



After the WMD
are defused and Saddam is ousted, we can rub the dissenters' collective noses in their own stupidity by releasing the volumes of hard evidence that we couldn't show them while they protested and stalled under the guise of diplomacy.

Peter - you're right on the Turkey vote not really being against the US. I think my point was that these small countries on the UNSC may surprise us with a no vote as the Turkey non-yes-vote-on-a-technicality was.

The strategy of the anti-Iraq-war group is fairly transparent at this point. By uniting together (aka the old adage "we need to hang together or we will hang separately") the anti's hope to discourage Bush from forcing a vote. That way France, Russia and Germany, can avoid going on record.



If the war goes well they can deny being against it (esp France). And if the war goes badly they can say see-I-told-you-so.



Bush needs to force a vote, to flush the anti's out and make them commit themselves, and let posterity be the judge of history.

Gideon, your arguments are valid, except for one thing. Blair can take one no-vote from a veto power, provided it is France (anti-French sentiment runs deep in the UK). He cannot survive a no-vote from three veto powers. In fact, I've already read that he is bargaining for a compromise, which gives Saddam another month. Knowing full well that is already very late to start a war now, this means Blair has folded his cards.

I agree that they should vote. I also think we should stop letting these events drive the timetable as they seemn to. I think that a more important issue is that France especially and some of the others signed Resolution 1441 when they were in fact opposed to its effects should Iraq fail to comply. Seems like "there oughta be a law"...