Chris B. write: >My guess is that the Blair side of the axis of righteousness, has already done contingency plans on the assumption that they will not get even a simple declaration of material breach through the security council. The hegemons will then declare their intention of taking the current military action further to maintain pressure on Iraq. They will look for opportunities to fly in specialist squads or parachute troops to secure key installations or protect populations from Saddam's troops.<
The problem with this interpretation is that the Bush administration would then be seen as staying within the boundaries of the U.N. Is this what it wants? Consider the possibility that the U.S. is 'playing' with the U.N. to finally show what is 'wrong' with working through the U.N. and thus to be able to disentangle itself from the U.N. for all future actions it desires. The extreme right here hates the U.N. If so, the Bush administration, following its 'complete' exposure of the U.N., would need to launch a full-scale attack and be done with the U.N. (Consider how 'exhausting' all these negotiations have been for the Bush administration; are they not saying "what do we need this for?".) In the final analysis Blair is not going to call the shots (no pun). One somewhat related question: Blix said at the beginning that the U.N. inspectors are only there to inspect. How is his calling for destruction by the Iraqi regime of its longer range missles not going beyond "inspection" to "policy"? Paul *********************************************************************** "Confronting 9-11, Ideologies of Race, and Eminent Economists", Vol. 20 RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Paul Zarembka, editor, Elsevier Science ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
