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Tony Blair may not get the UN resolution he needs to justify his support for an Iraq war, but President Bush on Friday offered him a consolation prize: A U.S. "road map" of actions required of both Israel and the Palestinians to achieve a final peace agreement within two years. The British prime minister has long pushed Washington to do more to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace in order to establish his bona fides in the Arab world, and minutes after President Bush's announcement, Blair stressed that the move would show the Western powers' "even-handedness" in dealing with...
...fact underlined Tuesday when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested the U.S. may have to consider going to war without the British troops currently deployed alongside the American invasion force. Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a high level of opposition from within his own party to invading Iraq without UN authorization, and he may not survive politically if he goes ahead without UN backing. Failure to pass a compromise ultimatum resolution setting a longer deadline and making specific disarmament demands of Iraq will leave Blair - and possibly other key European supporters of the U.S. position, such as Spain and Italy - deeply...
...reason for the administration's difficulties may be, in part, the nature of the evidence revealed by the UN process. The Bush case for war against Iraq is premised on the idea that not only has Saddam failed to complete the disarmament required of him by the Gulf War truce, but that he is actively pursuing new chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs; and that these, together with what Washington insists is an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda, represent a clear and present danger to U.S. security...
...Council that they have investigated a number of U.S. and British allegations and intelligence tips, which came to naught. The inspectors are not saying Iraq has disarmed, and they're setting specific disarmament targets such as the destruction of the al-Samoud 2 missiles whose range exceeds UN limits. But the inspections have done little to support the U.S. characterization of Saddam as a growing or imminent threat to Western and Arab security. For many the reluctant Council members, a war becomes permissible only if the threat posed by the regime in Baghdad is greater than the risks attached...
...Bush administration's patience for the UN process is almost certainly finite. Polls find that half of America's electorate is ready to go to war without UN backing and a growing number express frustration with the UN. Once the bombs are flying, support for the action will almost certainly increase. And some of the morbid symptoms of the war are already upon America - a plunging stock market, a soaring oil price and continued anxiety over terror attacks. That and the onset of Iraq's sweltering spring months are likely to create pressure for action. But that pressure...