Coalition of the Three to stage summit

Bush, Blair and Spanish PM Aznar will meet Sunday to map out its "final pursuit" of a UN resolution authorizing an Iraq invasion.

What's there to map out? If the US will agree to a three month deadline with clearly deliniated complience benchmarks, it can get nine votes (which would be a moral victory despite any possible French veto). If it gives Iraq a ridiculous one-week "deadline" (which is really one week to get the troops in position), then it dooms not only the resolution, but perhaps British and Australian involvement. The nominally unilateral invasion would become a literal unilateral invasion.

Of course, Ari is still blabbing about Bush's "final push for diplomacy blah blah blah", when Bush's efforts have not been about averting war, but about cajoling, threatening, and bribing the rest of the world to sign on. The world wants "diplomacy" aimed at peace, not at war, a distinction that Ari, Bush and Co. seem to miss.

So facing stiff opposition (something Bush and Co. had never experienced before, certainly not from the US press or Democratic Party) the US is now threatening to attack Iraq without putting a second resolution up for a vote -- despite Bush's bold declaration last week that he would force every nation to "show its cards".

Hey, it looked good in his scripted remarks (answering all-but scripted questions).

Posted March 14, 2003 07:44 AM | Comments (83)