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MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
LAYING IT ON THE LINE: Dominique de Villepin, French Foreign Minister, addresses the U.N. Security Concil
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British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw lambasted the Chirac plan, arguing that it would do nothing to tackle the problem of persistent noncompliance. "As it happens, we did examine these ideas in preparations for what became 1441," he told an audience of foreign policy experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "There was wide appreciation that they were simply not feasible in the absence of complete Iraqi cooperation and not necessary with complete Iraqi cooperation. The fact that those proposals are now being aired represents the clearest admission yet that Iraq is not cooperating. Nothing in Saddam's performance can give any confidence that any of these proposals would in any way change his behavior. Instead they are a recipe for procrastination and delay."
Even if the Chirac plan is less than perfect, is it still better than a full-blown war? As the applause at the Security Council indicated, many believe it could be. But the biggest players, the Americans, are not disposed to wait much longer to see just how hard France and its sympathizers are able to push it. Washington is eager to get beyond diplomatic dancing, and might move as quickly as this week to introduce a resolution for armed intervention in Iraq.
The weather will heat up soon in Iraq, troops are deployed that cannot be kept on alert indefinitely, and the further Powell's presentation of evidence fades into memory the less compelling it becomes. "We're willing to work this through with the French," says a senior State Department official, "but we're not willing to slow it down to the point of inaction." The U.S. plan is to steam ahead on the assumption that Paris will cave. If the French do veto a second resolution, so be it — Washington is comfortable with "a coalition of the willing." But the Americans believe the French will get onboard before it's time to rebuild Iraq and divvy up the oil contracts.
No one is willing to dismiss the possibility that Chirac could veer back into line and endorse a second resolution authorizing force. But for now the French President is not backing off. "In my view there's no reason for a new resolution," he says. "We are in the framework of 1441 and let's go on with it." If Washington pushes ahead with another resolution — if for nothing else, to protect their staunchest foreign ally, Tony Blair — it would put Chirac's vaunted steadfastness to the test. The French President can't expect the Bush Administration to make it easy for him. But he's taking a long-range view. "One image chases the last one in our media-dominated world," he says. "Once there are no real reasons for contention, it disperses rapidly. So I'm not worried about the relations between our two nations."
If he's right, the current spat may end with nothing more than resigned exasperation at the vagaries of French diplomacy. But if America rolls ahead — against French opposition and without a second U.N. resolution — basic assumptions about the transatlantic alliance could be overturned. Chirac, ever the politician, is leaving his options open: "If Iraq doesn't cooperate and the inspectors say this isn't working, it could be war." So the man who wants to give peace a chance may yet give war a chance instead.
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