| Diplomatic Defeats |
17 March 2003
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Bush Loses Diplomatic Battles
When war with Iraq arrives, one genuinely hopes that the armed forces of the United States perform better than the diplomats and civilan leadership of America have in the last week. To call it a rout is not overselling the situation. The Bush administration has bumbled and fumbled every opportunity to win its case at the UN and elsewhere, and has failed. That is what happens when the wrong approach is used for the wrong ends.
Mr. Bush and his people have made no bones about it -- regime change in Iraq is their objective. The disarmament discussion, which has brought the UN into the picture and foiled the hawks at the White House, is not the focus. It is a pretext. Indeed, after appearing on talk shows, various administratin officials have confessed that if Saddam were to disarm, they would be stymied completely.
The problem with the approach thus far is that many of America's allies, and interested neutrals, have actually believed this whole nonsense has been about disarming Iraq. The French, as much as they get theirs in these pages, are right when they say that inspections are working. Look at the facts; the current inspections have brought about the destruction of the al-Samoud missiles. The point is that Washington doesn't really care about that. A casus belli is what the White House is after.
The Bush administration has never taken the diplomacy seriously as a way to resolve the problem(s) in Iraq. It has been a PR exercise, at best. War has been on the agenda since September 12, 2001 (see Bob Woodward's book, Bush at War), and the March 17 deadline just offered to Iraq merely marks the first day when enough military resources are deployed to begin fighting. It's been a sham all along, and that's why Iraq has done so well in the court of world opinion.