No matter what your position on the matter of war in Iraq, one must give the president credit for the shrewdness he displayed last week before the United Nations in calling the bluff of our allies – perhaps “The Prince” has been among Bush’s “light reading” on his Crawford ranch.

What bluff is this? It is of course the groupthink mantra of our European and Middle Eastern allies – “We object unless the U.N. Security Council approves.” Mind you, time and time again they’ve voiced their steadfast opposition to American military action with respect to Iraq, yet suddenly when it’s dressed up in a Security Council resolution, all moral qualms are immediately vanquished.

The bluff, of course, was in the assumption that Bush couldn’t be bothered to obtain such authorization and in his “arrogant unilateral ways,” he would simply make his own allies and wage war on his own terms.

So of course our European allies are now tripping over themselves to heap praise upon President Bush after his speech before the U.N. General Assembly, almost as if to erase all prior doubts as to the integrity of their motives.

Even Saudi Arabia, which had previously expressed grave concerns about any potential U.S. military action in Iraq and refused to authorize any strikes from military bases on Saudi soil, now lavishly supports any U.N.-sanctioned action in Iraq being staged from Saudi Arabia. Says the Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal to the New York Times, if the United Nations warranted action, “everyone is obligated to follow through.” Some moral turpitude.

What our allies outside of the United Kingdom (and even many Democrats at home) seem to be demonstrating is a particular reluctance to hold themselves accountable to any binding position on the matter – rather, they choose to cede any moral authority on the matter to a group, thereby shamelessly evading any responsibility for the positions they take.

Of course, our friends across the lake are not the only ones well-versed in negotiations undertaken in bad faith. Even while waving around the various violations of U.N. resolutions on Iraq (most notably, verification that Iraq has ceased all production of weapons of mass destruction), Bush has demonstrated little to no zeal for any form of serious weapons inspections effort. Rather, the solution lies entirely in “regime change,” as he puts it – even if weapons inspectors are admitted, it is Bush’s own determination that “a regime change must occur.”

All of this undermines any credibility Bush brings to his argument, which hinges upon enforcing U.N. resolutions that stop well short of what Bush seeks – the end of such resolutions being to disarm Iraq, not to replace their government with a more ideal form. In seeking action on Iraq, Bush’s sole end in involving the United Nations seems only to be one of getting a rubber stamp to proceed as planned.

Clearly, Bush has not suddenly gone from saber-rattling unilateralist to touchy-feely multilateralist on the road to Damascus – rather, he has simply found a more clever way to play his hand, one which would make even Machiavelli proud. To accomplish this end, the administration is making the idea of inspections as unpalatable to Iraq as possible, ostensibly on the grounds of then receiving their “causus belli” from the Security Council for an attack on Iraq.

Consider the terms Bush proposes, which amount to no guarantee that sanctions on Iraq will be lifted following a satisfactory completion of inspections, nor will they be guaranteed freedom from an American attack, weapons of mass destruction or not. What incentive then does Iraq have to submit to any ultimatum -U.N. or American – if the consequences are the same regardless? Whether or not they comply, the end result is “regime change,” according to Bush. Some choice – or as Iraqi deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz put it, “it’s doomed if you do, doomed if you don’t.”

Likewise, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) echoed these sentiments after meeting with the Iraqi delegation last weekend, telling The Washington Post, “[B]ut when Bush talks of regime change, [the Iraqis] don’t want to hear my message. They say, `What’s the point of letting the inspectors in?’ They feel that whatever they do, they’re going to get hit.”

If the problem is truly one of verifying that Iraq has indeed halted its production of weapons of mass destruction, the United States should be welcoming overtures by the Iraqi government to submit to unconditional inspections. Instead, Bush is busy stacking the deck – by making such a bad-faith offer to the Iraqis he makes an offer they can’t help but refuse, thus creating the perfect pretense to wage an otherwise unnecessary war. Such bad-faith diplomacy, however, is not befitting of the world’s remaining superpower – America can do better than this.

Our credibility as a just and moral world leader depends on it.

Steve

Skutnik

is a graduate student in nuclear physics from Ames.