"A plague on both your houses"

Well, that could be the title of this editorial (it's actually called "The Worst-Case Scenario Arrives") in the March 6 issue of the New York Times. The UN Security Council seems to be at a complete impasse. Even though Iraq was starting to give in, war now seems inevitable, as France, Germany, and Russia declare that they will not back the war, and the U.S. has announced that they will go ahead even without UN backing.

"The rupture in the Security Council is not just another bump in the road in the showdown with Iraq. It could lead to a serious, possibly fatal, breakdown in the system of collective security that was fashioned in the waning days of World War II, a system that finally seemed to be reaching its potential in the years since the end of the cold war. Whatever comes of the conflict with Iraq, the world will have lost before any fighting begins if the Security Council is ruined as a mechanism for unified international action."

----

"The French and the Russians are not the only ones who brought us to this point. Mr. Bush and his team laid the groundwork for this mess with their arrogant handling of other nations and dismissive attitude toward international accords. Though they mended their ways to some extent after Sept. 11, and initially tried to work through the Security Council on Iraq, the White House's obvious intention to go to war undermined that effort."

--> www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/06THU1.html