President George W. Bush met with Prime Ministers Blair and Aznar in the Azores just a few hours ago, and the grim faces on those three, their staffs and the press all said that war is coming very soon. The question is, why fly all the way to the Azores to announce what has been Washington's policy for over a year?
The Bush administration has wanted regime change in Iraq for more than a year, possible since day one. Yet to come right out and use that as a reason for war creates an uneasy precedent. Attacking another country simply because the existing regime is odious would be a new low in global affairs, it would offer the Arabs an excuse to attack Israel (which Washington won't have), and it would mean that democracy was well as dictatorship could be overthrown from abroad as a legitimate national policy objective.
Instead, the Bush team did what nations have done for centuries: put forward an impossible demand and, when the demand is not met, use that as a pretext to war. The demand has been disarmament of Iraq. While a wise Saddam Hussein would have handed in everything back in November (and thus won a UN Security Council guarantee against US-led violence), his is the sort of character that could not comply.
This summit in the Atlantic, however, was pointless. The three leaders could not have spoken for even an hour, including translation time. There is no chance that new angles were examined, new ideas discussed and sadly rejected. This meeting was window dressing at best, cynical grandstanding at worst. Many have said that this was the last chance to avert war. That is nonsense -- January 20, 2001 was the last chance to derail this fight, but George Bush was sworn in anyway.