I’ve gotta be missing something in this CNN article. Here’s the money quote: The Bush administration believes that it is one vote shy of having nine of 15 votes needed on a U.N. Security Council resolution that sets a Monday deadline for Iraqi compliance, a senior U.S. State Department official said, and officials are focusing diplomatic energies on Mexico and Chile to secure their backing. ...
Joshua Marshall has a nice little piece (original) on unilateralism, multilateralism, anti-Americanism, and the UN today. I’m going to offer a couple more points: Tacitus quite accurately pointed out to me that there was a vein of anti-Americanism even directly after 9/11; it’s not as if everyone in the world was our friends. On thinking about that a little more, though, I’m not sure it’s a distinctive statement. One could as easily point out that there’s always been a vein of anti-French sentiment in the world, and a vein of anti-British sentiment, and a vein of anti-British sentiment. It goes with the territory. Humans have a xenophobic streak. Bush should still be held accountable for fanning the spark of anti-Americanism into a roaring flame. ...
CNN picked up the bogus drone story. Do these people not read? Blix said he found RPVs. I’m slightly boggled. Must not give into frustration! Must be strong!
Clare Short, who is Tony Blair’s international development secretary, will resign if England invades Iraq without a second UN resolution. Bush needs Blair. Blair needs the UN. How clear does it need to get?
A lot of people wanted that memo (original) about the US spying on other UN members to be a hoax. Just something the Observer made up. Today, the Observer came [ever so close](http://web.archive.org/web/20080517120442/http://web.archive.org/web/20080517120442/http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,910648,00.html (original) “The Observer | Special reports | GCHQ arrest over Observer spying report”) (original) to reporting that their source was arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act. (Via Electrolite.) Fortunately, nobody really cares about this stuff. Right? (original)
Here’s that London Times article I mentioned yesterday. It reveals that Blix mentions Iraqi drones in his written report, and accuses him of trying to cover this up by failing to mention them in his oral report. Only problem is, he did mention them in his oral report. “Inspectors are also engaged in examining Iraq’s programme for Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs). A number of sites have been inspected with data being collected to assess the range and other capabilities of the various models found. Inspections are continuing in this area.” ...
As the blogosphere gears up for the Blix report to the UN, Howard Bashman soldiers along talking about legal matters. His post on yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions is so good I felt like linking to it. It ought also to be of particular interest to Californians and Alaskans, since two of the cases decided relate to California’s three strikes law and one of them is about the Alaska sex offenders registry. ...
Eugene Volokh goes over the differences between Iraq and North Korea. He’s right, as far as he goes — but now let’s ask the next question. “If we can live with North Korea possessing and actively making nuclear weapons, why can’t we live with the possibility that Iraq may get nuclear weapons?” Or, put differently: assuming inspections fail, and assuming it’s impossible to stand between Saddam and nukes, what makes that world more dangerous than the one we live in? And please. Don’t tell me Saddam is more loony than Kim Jong-il.
Hey, let’s do that thing I see the hip kids doing where I stuff a bunch of links into one post! The Crossgates Mall, quite appropriately, has dropped the charges against Stephen Downs. Steven Kaye, in comments, pointed me at Eurasianet. Looks like a really good source of info on Turkey and other Eurasian states. (Hey, Steven’s looking for players for an 1890s CoC game. Or, anyhow, was in 1999. Hm.) ...
The DoD kicked out a press release today about Iraq’s oil. About what you’d expect no matter what you believe: promises to preserve the oil for Iraq, warnings that Saddam may intend to destroy the oil, ecological warnings, etc. I found this quote interesting, though: “Oil is a natural resource of Iraq that provides commerce, income for education and other needs, and infrastructure. The department considers destruction of that resource as an act of terrorism.” ...