RE: [OpenHeroQuest] Re: Vote RRRRRRRRRRRRR !!!!!!!!!

From: Andrew Solovay <asolovay_at_7K4FxBrCAi-a6PbynrJdg-YzmQueHxMUyoLmonuwkRFRCAnV74JoKM4wE9TCUmMznfj>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:41:26 -0700

Julian Lord <mailto:jlord_at_b5WTAdCxRBoeHbJndznJA1oboGRQVciMvxVC8870oct5JLPu7PeACGQqhZyKr8lImMnb.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
>
> that's : "We will not support [the proposed resolution] under any
> circumstances whatever"
>
> <sigh>
>
> Sometimes, French doublespeak really doesn't help.
>
> Translated into what they expect "clever people" to infer, it meant
> that they would never support the proposed resolution whilst remaining
> loftily uncommitted about the possibility of any subsequent
> resolution(s).

We kind of guessed that. The trouble was, that forced us to wonder if when they supported the first resolution--the one that said Iraq was being given a "final opportunity" to cooperate--that was also doublespeak. Given that the French position seemed to be "If Iraq blows its 'final opportunity', then give them another 'final opportunity", we had to wonder whether French aquiescence was worth anything at all.

I think we would have written off the UNSC long before, if Blair hadn't needed it to assuage the Neville-Chamberlain wing of his party. We're paying a price now for having tried so hard to get UNSC buy-in then. If we'd just blown off the UN from the start (as Clinton did with Kosovo), then we wouldn't be regarded now as having "defied" the UN.