Population: One

Time for another quick Iraq rundown.

Bush’s promise to unveil a Middle East peace plan (despite what some in his administration think of it) may have been another favor to Tony Blair, as it seems that promise is helping Tony Blair keep Claire Short from resigning. On the flip side, a poll of Labor backbenchers showed 95 out of 129 MPs refusing to support military action without a second resolution.

Still, any talk of peace is simply avoiding reality. US bombers took out Iraqi radar systems last night — specifically, those systems which would give warning of a US attack. The Azores meeting is not a diplomatic summit, it’s a planning session for the attack.

Not so long ago, Bush said there’d be a Security Council vote “no matter what.” Apparently he lied. Chile circulated a compromise proposal that adopted Britain’s five steps — five things Saddam must do or face war — but gave him 30 days to get it done. Bush said no. I don’t think Bush can allow that resolution to get to the floor, because it would get the nine yes votes Blair needs to head off any revolt. Unfortunately for Blair, ignoring a resolution with nine yes votes is far worse than skipping another resolution altogether, so Blair and Bush have to get the war in gear before anything happens. See what trying to reach a compromise gets you?

Along those lines, if France really wanted to embarass the hell out of the US, it’d pick up the Chilean proposal and champion it. Imagine the fun if Bush found himself forced to veto a resolution that included a trigger for war? I don’t really think that’ll happen, but man it’d be interesting.

Anyhow, I’m still predicting March 21st, this coming Friday. (Doh. Was off by three.) Launching the war mid-week would pummel the markets; better to give Wall Street a couple of days to watch before they can panic. If the Security Council winds up bringing other resolutions to the floor, that might speed things up.

Charlie Daniels continues to be a sad, sorry little son of a bitch. He sent that “open letter” out to a bunch of people. Tamara Saviano (who works in the music industry) got the letter, apparently directly from Daniels. She responded, from her home, on her own time.

She got fired. After Daniels’ publicist complained.

So not only is Daniels revealing himself as the worst kind of idiot, but if you dare to disagree with him, he’ll see if he can get you fired.

(Via Textism, via Electrolite.)

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.

Germany, Russia, China, France, and Syria are firmly against. That’s 5 out of the 15. The US, UK, Spain, and Bulgaria are your clear yes votes. That’s 4 yes votes out of the 9 needed.

That leaves Pakistan, Mexico, Guinea, Chile, Cameroon, and Angola. For the CNN quote above to be accurate, all of those countries except Chile and Mexico would need to have signed on. However, just yesterday, Pakistan said it would abstain. Note also that the three African nations in the undecided list have historical and economic ties to France.

So did Pakistan change its mind? Did all three of the African countries decide to jump to the American side? Would Rumsfeld have made damaging comments if the undecideds were lining up on the US/UK side anyhow? Is the CNN article just a calculated leak of false information? God knows.

Edit: The article now says Pakistan changed its mind and all three of the African countries will vote yes. So that answers those questions, except for the one about Rumsfeld. You know… particularly after the Blix drone reporting mess, I’m starting to wonder if it’s a good thing that CNN.com is OK with altering stories after they’ve been posted. From a journalistic reliability standpoint, I’d like to see CNN articles marked as either fixed or subject to change.

Joshua Marshall has a nice little piece 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.

Second point: Chirac is impressing the hell out of me. Not in a moral sense, but as a politician. I realized the other day that he’s put together a coalition consisting of France, Germany, and Russia. France and Germany? Germany and Russia? France and Russia? Wasn’t there been some animosity of considerable proportions between those countries not too long ago?

Now, you can say that they’re just uniting because they have similar interests, but that kind of begs the question of why they have similar interests in this case. They’re not really terribly similar politically. They all have very different problems. And who’d have guessed that France would wind up as the organizer, anyhow?

Chirac’s a hell of a diplomat, no matter how much he pisses us off. I hope nobody’s underestimating him.