Playing Old Maid
Sometimes in negotiations when you try to issue a conditional threat, of the form "If you do this I'll do that", the other guy may not believe you. You're trying to dissuade him from what he says he'll do by your thread of negative consequences, but if he proceeds anyway, then about all you can do is to try to make your threat even more emphatic. So the UK and US wanted to have another vote, and the French expressed opposition. What the French wanted was for us to give up, not bring the resolution to a vote, and to act without doing so. Then the French could blame us for "acting unilaterally". What we wanted was to bring it to a vote and have the French veto it (or wimp out), because then it would be clear that the UN was a joke. So the purpose of French threats in the last week has been to convince us to not call for a vote.
And in the face of that threat, we continued to say we would ask for one even if we didn't think it would pass. Thus the French went from "We oppose this strongly and will probably vote to oppose" to, ultimately, Chirac himself saying in a TV interview that France would unconditionally veto any resolution which contained any ultimatum or actual deadline. That was a blunder, as will become evident.
Hey, and from his follow-up article, I enjoyed this little tidbit:
Tomahawks don't have to fly a direct route; they're designed to be able to follow quite circuitous routes.
because I just watched Under Siege, and I'd actually wondered about the Tomahawks snaking around the coast of Hawii.
Wow, there's going to be an Under Siege 3? The tagline is "terror flies high", so it looks like they're hitting all three of "land, sea, and air", just not in that order.
Saturday, March 15, 2003
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