Editorial: Bush and the UN

George Bush swallowed hard and said many of the right things. Suppressing many of his own prejudices, and those of the hawks in his Administration, he read a speech to the United Nations that had been carefully crafted to persuade people who do not agree with him.

His argument for a stiffening of the international community's posture towards Iraq was phrased repeatedly in terms of the founding values of the UN and of the challenge to the organisation's authority presented by Saddam Hussein's defiance. Most pointedly he also answered UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's warning against great powers "choosing to follow or reject the multilateral path" for reasons of political convenience.

President Bush replied that he wanted the resolutions of the world's multilateral body to be enforced when they are unilaterally undermined by Iraq. That is his strongest argument, and his most forceful challenge, to the UN. The Security Council now has an obligation to respond to it, never mind that he immediately undermined his own case by threatening unilateral action if he could not secure the multilateral agreement he sought.

The obvious way in which the UN can take up Mr Bush's challenge is to demand the return of its weapons inspectors. To be meaningful, however, a demand for the return of the inspectors would have to be backed up by a credible threat of force. The question now is: What if the UN decides that the threat from Saddam is not so great or so urgent as to justify war? What then will become of Mr Bush's newfound admiration for the institution capable of lending what Mr Annan rightly called "unique legitimacy" to Mr Bush's ambition to topple Saddam?

- INDEPENDENT, London.

Further reading
Feature: War with Iraq

Iraq links and resources