48 hours until war
Bush manages to get his war at last, but you couldn't tell he was relieved by watching the footage of his TV announcement. Meanwhile, Robin Cook resigns, and delivers the best resignation speech ever.
Well, Bush has given Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country (source: every single news outlet in the world apart from L’Equipe), or he’ll declare war “at a time of our choosing” (wow, the arrogance just oozes out of that phrasing). Not only that, but the ultimatum now applies to Saddam’s sons.
Bush appears to be using a peculiar type of negotiating tactic. Consider, for instance, the most recent stillborn UK diplomatic suggestion of setting an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, of which one of the conditions was that Saddam should go on live TV in Iraq and admit that he had weapons of mass destruction. Well, that was a no-starter, and inteded as such; it was a droppable clause that the UK never really cared about, but was there so they could abandon it and claim goodwill.
That sort of tactic is designed to manufacture consensus. Bush, on the contrary, has been adding more and more stringent demands to his already impressive laundry list of capitulation, perhaps just to make sure that, dammit, there’s no way that Saddam can agree to them, so Bush gets to play with his soldiers.
Compare and contrast these two online videos (sorry, you pretty much need broadband for this): Bush’s TV announcement (via NYTimes) and Robin Cook’s resignation speech (via BBC). Bush looks dazed and confused, and you get the impression that he wants to dump the soundbites and be done with it; Robin Cook revels in the knowledge that he’s making history in the House of Parliament, and delivers a barnstormer, rebutting pretty much all of Tony Blair’s arguments without breaking a sweat, and ending with a phenomenal challenge to Blair’s policies that, frankly, still gives me goosepimples on the third watching.
I could quote large portions of it, but I’d advise you to either read the cuttings that are, frankly, everywhere, or watch the performance for yourself.
Consider this: it is against the rules - because it’s not right, not proper, not cricket, what - to applaud anyone in the House of Commons. That’s why MPs shout “hear, hear”, “yah” and other random words mostly made of vowels. But Robin Cook got a standing ovation. This is unheard of.