# Posted 10:19 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

FISKING TIME: This NYT editorial just p****d me off. So here goes:

With yesterday's barely veiled French and Russian threat to veto a war resolution, the United Nations Security Council appears to be rapidly approaching a crippling deadlock over Iraq. That would be the worst of all possible outcomes. It would lift the diplomatic pressure on Iraq to disarm and sever the few remaining restraints that have kept the Bush administration from going to war with its motley ad hoc coalition of allies.

"Motley" and "ad hoc"? That makes it sound like our allies are Tanzania and Vanuatu, not Britain, Spain, Italy and sixteen other countries in Europe (counting Poland). In fact, the sudden emergence of this coalition might have something to with the fact that almost all of its members belong to a relatively well-established alliance that goes by the name of 'NATO'.

As for "Ad hoc", that's a better description of the anti-war coalition, comprising the quixotic French, a German chancellor mired in an economic crisis and assorted African dictators along for the ride.

The rupture in the Security Council is not just another bump in the road in the showdown with Iraq. It could lead to a serious, possibly fatal, breakdown in the system of collective security that was fashioned in the waning days of World War II, a system that finally seemed to be reaching its potential in the years since the end of the cold war. Whatever comes of the conflict with Iraq, the world will have lost before any fighting begins if the Security Council is ruined as a mechanism for unified international action.

First of all, I'd like to inject a dose or reality into conservative dreams and liberal nightmares about an unauthorized war with Iraq crippling of the United Nations. The past six months have made clear just how much the UN matters to Europe. 1441 played a critical role in persuading almost all of Europe's governments to support the United States.

If the US goes to war over a French and/or Russian veto, that will show that the French and Russian vetos are worthless, not that the UN is irrelevant.

As for "the system of collective security" that the NYT is so fond of, might I ask to whom it has provided security? I believe that the UN plays a critical role in international politics, but providing security is not something that it has ever been able to do. Ask the Bosnians. Ask the Kosovars. Ask the Rwandans. What the UN does do is help rebuild nations after dictators have wrecked them and/or the United States has overthrown those dictators with force.

The first casualty is likely to be the effort to use coercive diplomacy to disarm Iraq. The unity of the Security Council last November in backing Resolution 1441 without a dissenting vote, combined with the movement of American forces to the Persian Gulf region, changed the equation with Iraq. Though Saddam Hussein is far from full disarmament, he has given ground in recent months by permitting the return of arms inspectors after a four-year absence and, more recently, by beginning to destroy illegal missiles. With more time and an escalation of pressure, Mr. Hussein might yet buckle.

The Times has it exactly right: Saddam won't disarm unless someone steps up the pressure. The French and Russians clearly don't understand that. They insist on taking at face value Saddam's charade of complaince.

Thus, it seems there are two ways to go from here -- but both begin with the President declaring that he will go to war with or without the United Nations. If the President's declaration produces a compromise with the French and Russians, that might step up the pressure on Saddam. If it doesn't produce a compromise, Saddam will face a very clear choice of disarming or having it done for him in much less pleasant way.

...the French and the Russians are not the only ones who brought us to this point. Mr. Bush and his team laid the groundwork for this mess with their arrogant handling of other nations and dismissive attitude toward international accords. Though they mended their ways to some extent after Sept. 11, and initially tried to work through the Security Council on Iraq, the White House's obvious intention to go to war undermined that effort.

Ah, now I see. If the US had just signed on the dotted line at Kyoto, then the French and Germans would get behind the war effort. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

As for the "arrogant handling of other nations", why have only the French and Germans taken such great offense while the rest of Europe supports the United States? Could it be that Gerhard Schroeder had an election to win? Or that Jacques Chirac dreams of multipolarity?

Finally, we come to "the White House's obvious intention to go to war". Perhaps the French and Germans would've been more cooperative if the US wasn't serious about disarming Iraq by any means necessary? Didn't the NYT admit just a few sentences ago that 1441 "combined with the movement of American forces to the Persian Gulf region" forced Iraq to make concessions?

There may be a few days more for diplomacy to play out on Iraq, but it is already clear that the great powers on the Security Council, particularly the United States and France, have brought the United Nations to the brink of just the kind of paralysis and powerlessness that they warned would be so damaging to the world.

Hold on. Is it the paralysis or Saddam Hussein we're worried about here?

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