Jinn of Current Events

Six months ago, President Bush in his excellent 2002-Sep-12 address to the United Nations: The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant? ... Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder.

Time to show your cards. 

Germany's stock index (Dax) has fallen below 2,200. That's a 70% drop since 2000-Mar-07, apparently a worse bear market than that of the Great Depression. Paris shares have dropped a little less than 70% since they peaked in September 2000. London shares closed at their lowest level since May 1995. 

David Warren: The gap is now clearly unbridgeable. Those not already onside with the U.S. are opposed to war under any circumstances at all. The revelations of the last few days -- including the discovery by U.N. inspectors in Iraq of such "smoking guns" as a gas-spewing air drone, and delivery devices for chemical and biological bombs; the revelation on Al-Jazeera TV of one of Saddam's suicide-terrorist camps; the public threat by a member of Iraq's cabinet to gas the Kurds again; multiple reports of the placing of explosives in Iraqi oil wells both north and south; the allegation that France has been shipping spare parts for the repair of Saddam's air fleet through third parties in the Gulf -- such overwhelming evidence of the true state of affairs is ignored alike by media and diplomats. They have reached their decision, to isolate and damage the United States as much as possible, and grant Saddam a pass. They don't want to know about anything that doesn't advance their argument, just as the appeasers of Hitler in a former generation did not want to know. Unfortunately, Tony Blair may be defeated by the coordinated attacks launched by France, Germany, and Russia. Update: based on Blair's performance in parliamentary debate today, the UK still stands firmly with the US. 

Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post: Walk away, Mr. President. Walk away from the U.N. Security Council. It will not authorize the coming war. You can stand on your head and it won't change the outcome. ... If the one-line resolution passes, the violation triggers 1441, which triggers the original resolutions ending the Gulf War. If it fails, you've exposed the United Nations for what it is: the League of Nations, empty, cynical and mendacious. Mr. President: Call the vote and walk away. 

The United Nations has pulled out more than 30 weapons inspectors throughout Iraq. About 70 weapons inspectors remain. They are ready to be evacuated within three hours of receiving orders, assuming Saddam lets them do so. 

WSJ: the spectacle of the U.S. government begging [Guinea] for permission to sacrifice American blood and treasure to save the world from Saddam Hussein exposes the farce that the U.N. Security Council's Iraq debate has become. Every day of delay in starting the war matters little to Guinea but it puts more Americans at mortal risk.