Diplomacy: His Lonely March

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The U.S. effort against Iraq took a hammering last Friday, after the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, told the Security Council that Baghdad is now taking "pro-active" steps to cooperate with the inspectors' requests, demonstrated most dramatically by Iraq's destruction last week of 40 banned al-Samoud missiles. "We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks," Blix said. ElBaradei disputed the veracity of Western intelligence reports that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. Secretary of State Colin Powell could barely contain his exasperation with the inspectors' upbeat assessments. Privately, his aides trashed them--"Pathetically unaggressive, amateurish and believing everything the Iraqis tell them," a senior State Department official said--and claimed that the inspectors are ignoring tips from U.S. intelligence and capitulating to Iraqi intimidation. Inspectors vehemently deny the charges. But Powell's Russian and French counterparts hailed the reports of progress and repeated their threats to block passage of the Anglo-American resolution. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin rejected the idea that the British amendment amounted to a compromise, saying, "We would not accept a resolution that will lead to war."

De Villepin's statements, which were echoed by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, may have been just as significant for the four-letter word they pointedly avoided: veto. France and Russia could veto the second resolution if Washington strong-arms enough yes votes out of the six countries sitting on the fence, but the U.S. believes France and Russia can be stared down. Russia, in particular, is under intense U.S. pressure to keep its veto in its pocket. U.S. diplomats are trying to peel Russia away and isolate Paris, daring the French to veto the U.S. resolution on their own. At a closed-doors lunch after Friday's meeting, Powell made an emotional last appeal for support, telling the other ministers that the U.S. would never have come to the U.N. to begin with if it were hell-bent on war. Powell appeared to be personally hurt by French intransigence; it was France, after all, who in October demanded that the U.S. return to the Security Council for a second resolution before going to war. Powell's speech may have softened the hearts of wavering member states: one U.N. ambassador at the lunch called Powell's speech "inspirational."

There would certainly be benefits to bringing more countries on board. Sealing a second resolution would allow the Administration to drape a multilateralist cloak over what many have charged is a U.S.-driven obsession with ousting Saddam. A U.N. stamp of approval would also make it easier for the U.S. to ask for the U.N.'s help in rebuilding Iraq after the war. And the various issues that will clamor for the world's attention after Iraq--from North Korea to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--could grow into far more dangerous crises if the U.S. and its allies can't figure out a way to put behind them the differences that emerged over Iraq.