Thinking Meat

Thoughts on "going to the UN"

I see no concessions made here. The U.S. is not handing the UN any important matters. So far, I don't see anything handed to the UN at all, other than an acknowledgement of its presence, which was already illustrated quite clearly with a suicide bombing, thanks.

I'm guessing that this is another political ploy, just as all the "final resolutions" on Iraq were. The US will go in and ask for troops, the UN will say "not without us getting control," at which point the whole question will be tabled.

Later on, Bush will be able to say, "Look, we went to the UN, but they refused to help out." And that will wash with just enough people to keep this from being a political issue.

Troops can always be obtained from other places where other countries are already committed and have no choice -- particularly the Balkans, where Old Europe is already quite engaged. Removing most American forces from there would necessitate a commesurate increase in the German, French, etc. presence, thus giving us our foreign support without cost, and removing us from a place with zero strategic value to the U.S. (Worst-case scenario: Germany and France fail to compensate for American absence, and the Balkans deteriorate. Big deal. Milosevic isn't coming back, and Serbia was never a genuine threat to U.S. interests.)

The whole UN thing seems like political theater to me, and I seem to vaguely recall the script.

This started out as a post at Vodka Pundit, but the site got fubared just as I was about to post. No point in wasting all those words...

Update: And here come France and Germany, chomping down on the bait, right on cue.