Arm-Twisting
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Fri Feb 21 20:50:31 CET 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/international/middleeast/21IRA
Q.html?th
US and UK are trying to arm-twist poorer and weaker members of
Security Council into supporting their war, hoping to secure 9 votes
and than co-erce Russia, China and France into abstaining from
veto.
This is probably a dead end. Turkey just turned down a $26B U.S.
bribe. There is no reason to believe the U.S. will have more luck
with the Security Council members.
The New York Times says Bulgaria supports the U.S. - this is not
what I heard from Bulgarian representative during the special
meeting of Security Council. He supported French. He even spoke
French.
Germany, being the part of the 'Old Europe' axis is against, too.
And Syria, of course, will be against. There is nothing Syria could
gain by the U.S. war on its neighbor.
Spain may support UK and US, but at the price of electoral loss at
home. Pakistan's risks are bigger, since they won't only lose
elections, they will lose their heads to radical Muslim majority that
rules that country in reality, if they cast their vote with the US.
In the special meeting, Angola clearly stated its opposition to the
war. Chile and Mexico are probably too indebted to U.S. to oppose
it. But Guinea and Cameroon (a formerly German colony) may
swing both ways.
Cameroon's representative delivered a long speech in which he said
absolutely nothing. He will probably vote with majority. Guinea's
representative warned of imminent and disastrous collapse of the
U.N. - signaling that he might, vaguely, oppose the war.
So, let's do the count: US, UK, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Cameroon for
war - that's 6 not 9. The US might pressure Guinea, Angola,
Pakistan, Bulgaria, Syria, hoping to gain at least 3 of 5, but they
might gain none or not enough...
Maybe it would be more profitable for US to have the UN Security
Council to gather to pass an anti-war resolution - then at least the
U.S. could veto it.
ivo
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