A Second Resolution Attempt

So, the Bush Administration is going for a second resolution at the U.N.

Most of the commentary I'm reading in the blogosphere and conservative press is negative. Most seem to be taking the position that this just plays into the hands of the 'inspect forever' crowd, while giving the anti-war movement time to build even more opposition to a war.

This criticism makes a lot of sense if you accept the purpose of this resolution at face value - it looks to me like it's almost guaranteed to fail. The best the Bush administration can hope for is abstention from three out of five veto-wielding powers, and the more likely outcomes would seem to be a veto by France.

This makes me wonder... What if the Bush administration expects the resolution to fail? What if they WANT it to fail? This is an administration that thinks big. The United Nations was very useful in the cold war, but it's now looking worse than irrelevant in the new war against terror. So it would be very useful to the Bush administration to marginalize the U.N. and show it for the ineffective paper tiger that it is. Having it veto a second resolution in the face of obvious Iraqi intransigance would be a critical turning point in establishing the future legitimacy of the United Nations. If the United States has decided that on balance the U.N. is a hindrance rather than a benefit, then there is great value in demonstrating its inability to act.

This is all speculation on my part, but a good test of this theory will be the exact wording of the resolution expected later today. I'll be watching to see if the resolution is worded in such a way as to portray the conflict as a test of the United Nations as well as Iraq.