Jean Chretien, Canada’s prime minister, in Mexico City on 27 February:
We have to think of consequences if there is a war outside of the U.N. We live in a very different world today. We have only one supernation in the world, one superpower, and the United Nations are needed more than ever.
So the purpose of the UN is simply to restrain the “one supernation … one superpower”?
And this should encourage the US to participate in its activities because …
The story is in the context of an informal Canadian UN proposal that would set a “strict time limit” on further inspections, as a “compromise” between France (et al.) and the US (et al.).
Of course, we’ve had strict time limits. Iraq has ignored them, or played them, or weaseled through them. So long as the UN inspection teams are willing to say, “Hey, Iraq voluntarily (kicking and screaming) offered up yet another warhead it had ‘lost,'” and as long as France, et al., are willing to use that as a demonstration of how inspections are “working,” setting a “time limit” is meaningless.
Especially when the inspections regime, and, indeed, any pressure on Iraq to comply with the UN, has come about only because of US (and British) troop movement and threats. And we’re the ones paying the bills, folks, for keeping those troops there. We’re the ones threatening to shed our own blood to this end. Not France. Certainly not Canada (which has posted two — two — soldiers in Kuwait, as forward observers).
Canada’s suggestions sound good, but without some strong definitions about what “substantial Iraqi compliance” means, it’s just a restatement of the status quo. And without some assurance that France, et al., will not simply weasel around what to do next (assuming that they wouldn’t go for something that doesn’t require yet another UNSC resolution), it’s pointless.