Jinn of Current Events

Dominique de Villepin: The hawks of the American administration are in the hands of Sharon. 

Foreign ministers Dominique de Villepin of France, Ivan S. Ivanov of Russia, and Joschka Fischer of Germany made a joint antiwar statement on March 5th, in Paris.

What exactly is the text of their joint statement, and what does it mean?

Our common objective remains the full and effective disarmament of Iraq, in compliance with Resolution 1441.

Already something is wrong and weak in the first paragraph. Resolution 1441 was unanimously passed four months ago, on 2002-Nov-08. It afforded Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council. It required of Iraq the accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems within 30 days (the famously incomplete December 7 declaration). The UNSC demanded that Iraq comply with its disarmament obligations and cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively. The part that France, Germany and Russia pretend to ignore in resolution 1441 is: immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament and cooperation on the part of Iraq. Words such as "full" and "effective" fail to convey the urgency of the unanimously approved disarmament resolution.

We consider that this objective can be achieved by the peaceful means of the inspections.

Wrong. Inspections are exclusively a means to observe, verify, and validate Iraq's immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament and cooperation — if such were actually happening. Iraq must comply with its obligations to disarm. If it doesn't do so peacefully and of its own accord, no amount of inspection will make it happen.

We moreover observe that these inspections are producing increasingly encouraging results:
- The destruction of the Al Samoud missiles has started and is making progress.
- Iraqis are providing biological and chemical information.
- The interviews with Iraqi scientists are continuing.

Wrong. Progress is the direct consequence of the military preparations made by and threats coming from the US and UK, combined with the continued attempts by Iraq to manipulate the Security Council meetings and slip slightly positive trends into the inspection reports. Showing 16 out of 30,000 chemical warheads does not disarmament make. The missiles should not have existed in the first place, and could have been destroyed overnight. The information about a few supposedly destroyed biological and chemical weapons comes late, and is incomplete; it had never been reported since 1991, and remains unverified. The interviews are extremely rare, are for the most part controlled by Iraq, and anyway such interviews provide no confirmation of immediate, unconditional, and active cooperation and disarmament.

Russia, Germany and France resolutely support Messrs. Blix and ElBaradei and consider the meeting of the Council on March 7 to be an important step in the process put in place.

Wrong. No such process is in place. Iraq has failed to engage in immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament and cooperation. Inspection processes are not the purpose of resolution 1441. Immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament is the Iraqi process that is required to be put in place by Iraq. Alas it has been and still is non-existent.

We firmly call for the Iraqi authorities to cooperate more actively with the inspectors to fully disarm their country. These inspections cannot continue indefinitely.

Wrong. Cooperation with the inspectors is not necessary to disarm, because the inspectors are neither in charge of nor responsible for disarmament itself. Iraq is required to disarm immediately, unconditionally, and actively, of its own accord. Inspectors can observe and confirm that Iraqi actions are such, if willingly provided with evidence by the Iraqi, nothing more. In particular, inspectors cannot and do not force Iraq to disarm — only Iraq can disarm itself, or be defeated by military action. The threat of such military action — by the US and UK, not by either France, Germany or Russia — is the only reason inspectors have been allowed back into Iraq, but they still haven't observed, verified, or validated immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament on the part of Iraq because such activity is not taking place.

We consequently ask that the inspections now be speeded up, in keeping with the proposals put forward in the memorandum submitted to the Security Council by our three countries. We must:
- Specify and prioritize the remaining issues, program by program.
- Establish, for each point, detailed time lines.

Wrong. Inspections need no particular speed or detailed timeline. Action is required of Iraq itself, because according to Resolution 1441 it must immediately, unconditionally, and actively disarm. How much time inspectors take to verify such disarmament is not critical, provided such disarmament were to take place (it is not).

Using this method, the inspectors have to present without any delay their work program accompanied by regular progress reports to the Security Council. This program could provide for a meeting clause to enable the Council to evaluate the overall results of this process.

Wrong. Iraq was required to present without delay its own unconditional programme for its own active disarmament, along with evidence of turning such programme into immediate actions, as could have been verified by UN inspectors, if Iraq had been complying and cooperating. The only thing the Security Council ought to evaluate is whether Iraq is immediately, unconditionally, and actively disarming itself — not the overall results of this [inspection] process. The goal is verified Iraqi disarmament. It is not regular progress reports on the lack of such disarmament. Each additional report of non-compliance merely asserts and confirms that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations to disarm itself and cooperate in the verification of such disarmament. The Security Council is supposed to monitor Iraq and enforce its obligations, not to micro-manage inspectors.

In these circumstances, we will not let a proposed resolution pass that would authorize the use of force.

Wrong. Resolution 1441 already authorizes military action: Iraq will face serious consequences if it continues to violate its obligations. When required to answer a simple question, will these countries agree, or disagree, that Iraq has failed to afford itself of the final opportunity to disarm and cooperate immediately, unconditionally, and actively, which they unanimously approved on 2002-Nov-08?

Russia and France, as permanent members of the Security Council, will assume all their responsibilities on this point.

Wrong. Resolution 1441 already authorizes military action. Claiming otherwise is irresponsible. If they truly mean what they say, that they will oppose the use of force against Iraq, they should be preparing to defend Saddam Hussein militarily, to engage their own forces in fighting against the liberation of Iraq by US and UK forces.

We are at a turning point. Since our goal is the peaceful and full disarmament of Iraq, we have today the chance to obtain through peaceful means a comprehensive settlement for the Middle East, starting with a move forward in the peace process, by:
- Publishing and implementing the road map;
- Putting together a general framework for the Middle East, based on stability and security, renunciation of force, arms control and trust building measures.

Wrong. The goal is not peaceful disarmament of Iraq, but immediate, unconditional, and active disarmament and cooperation. The disarmament of Iraq has no bearing on a comprehensive settlement for the Middle East. This final paragraph — with the reference to "the peace process" and "the road map" — is a thinly veiled attempt to pin and blame all Middle East problems, including the Butcher of Baghdad, on Israeli existence and survival (i.e. defending against repeated Arab attacks, and fighting Palestinian terrorism). Thus, at the end of the day they couldn't help but include vile anti-semitism in a joint statement that was supposedly about the best path to Iraqi disarmament.

The real turning points are: the 9/11 massacre, the coming liberation of Iraq, the open depravity and irrelevance of the UN, and the de facto death of NATO at the hands of France and Germany. We shall neither forgive, nor forget.

Ceterum censeo, delenda est Mecca. 

NYT: A court in northern India ordered archaeologists today to begin excavating a holy site in Ayodhya next week to determine whether a Hindu temple once existed there. The site is one of the most violently disputed between Hindus and Muslims anywhere in the country. ... [Hindus] believe it to be the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram thousands of years ago. They claim that Muslim marauders destroyed a Hindu temple there and built a mosque in its place in the 16th century. Muslims have said the claim is unproved. Well, we may soon have proof. On a related note, last November I reported that the Taj Mahal is probably an ancient Vedic (Hindu) temple, taken over and transformed by a Muslim despot. 

James Taranto: Just about everyone agrees that America can liberate Iraq from Saddam's rule. So enormous is our military advantage that no one would be surprised if Baghdad fell in a matter of days. Some argue, however, that it isn't a wise thing to do. I'd like to talk about what I see as three myths of the antiwar side. 

Gen. Tommy Franks, chief of the U.S. Central Command, to President Bush: [American forces] are trained, ready, capable ... and there is no doubt we will prevail.