Stardate
20030210.1415 (Captain's log): It's beginning to appear as if the revelation over the weekend of the new French/German plan for delaying war in Iraq was premature, and that it has given us a chance to largely nullify most of the hazard it represented, because it came out before they had all their ducks in a row. It does mean that there's no chance whatever now of a new resolution authorizing war passing the UNSC, because France and likely Russia will veto it "because we have something better".
The Russian position has always been frankly self-interested. They don't pretend to be an ally of ours, but they will cooperate with us when it seems to be in their own interest to do so. I don't mind that, which is why I'm not particularly scandalized or upset that Russia is opposing the war. Russia still hopes to collect on debts from the Soviet period for weapons shipped on credit, and also hopes to take advantage of certain deals made with Saddam for future trade, and they make no bones about it.
I can deal with someone who is self-interested, as long as they're honest about it. I am also honestly self-interested.
The Chinese have been keeping a low profile in all this; they're mostly bystanders. They wouldn't mind seeing us getting taken down a notch. They wouldn't mind getting concessions out of us regarding Taiwan, but they know that's not going to happen. But they also face their own barely-pacified religious insurrections and don't want to see that kind of thing strengthened. For the moment the main thing the Chinese government wants is to make sure China doesn't end up on the wrong side of history. So they're staying very quiet, and watching to see which way the wind blows. If there's an attempt to pass a new UNSC resolution, the most likely thing for China to do is to abstain.
Dr. Blix keeps crossing me up. I think I know why, now: he's an idealist. (I'm not used to finding genuine idealists in world politics; 99% of the time proclamations of idealistic motivations cover up sordid dealings.) After his discussions with the Iraqis over the weekend, he and el Baradei did a TV interview from Baghdad. What becomes clear is that Blix sees it as his primary job to prevent war, but not just imminent war. He not only wants to keep the US from attacking Iraq, but he also really does want to find and eliminate the Iraqi WMDs so as to prevent war in the longer term by Iraq on just about anyone. And since he thinks that war is a terrible catastrophe, he sees inspections as the only real way to prevent it, which is why he's advocating more inspections. But he's also an honest idealist, and recognizes that phony and futile inspections would cause more harm than good. So when he went to Baghdad this time he did his best to make clear that he really did think that full cooperation (which is to say, total capitulation) by Iraq was the only real way to avoid war.
He didn't get the cooperation he wants.
Iraq's position and behavior continues to be consistent: they're trying to delay in hopes that war becomes politically or practically impossible, and each time they seem to reach a major crisis point they make some sort of concession which is just enough to encourage those internationally who oppose war while not actually risking having their WMDs getting found and destroyed. So this time Blix came back with another small incremental concession (U2 flyovers) but no real change in position in any substantive way. (They also promised to pass a law making possession of WMDs illegal in Iraq. That would be laughable if the situation weren't so serious.)
Blix did his best to try to color this as progress, and he is pleading for more time in hopes that maybe, just maybe, Iraq will finally capitulate and really cooperate. But he was also honest: Iraq hasn't actually capitulated. And as an idealist he can't see the truth: they won't ever do so, and as a practical matter we can't afford to wait any longer. They're stringing him along; he's being used.
So he's asking for more time to "let the inspections work". He didn't get a breakthrough but he saw what he thought was grudging progress towards convincing Iraq that maybe it should actually consider possibly being more cooperative in future. Which is hardly good enough, unless you're dedicated to avoiding war at all costs for whatever reason.
The Franco-German position, revealed over the weekend, continues to be bizarre. Their plan, as it became more fully revealed, included tripling the number of inspectors and of backing them up with maybe two thousand armed UN "peacekeepers", to enforce inspections in an undefeated nation with an army of half a million men, while leaving Saddam in power. But since Blix is truly an idealist, he's also an honest man and he said that the problem wasn't the number of inspectors but rather Iraqi cooperation: "The principal problem is not the number of inspectors but rather the active cooperation of the Iraqi side."
And he's right, and that pronouncement by him takes a hell of a lot of the wind out of the sails of the new French/German plan. Combined with preemptive denunciations in the strongest possible terms by the US and UK over the weekend, and the fact that this new idea doesn't actually pass the "horselaugh test", it looks like the main thing it represents now is a transparent excuse for France
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