At least for those of us who favor unfettered weapons inspections rather than war with Iraq, the news that the US is to offer a deal for a U.N. Resolution on Iraq is very encouraging. If Saddam rejects this, there will be no alternative but to send in troops. But the global consequences of an attack on Saddam backed by the entire world would be totally different from, and far more favorable than, those of a US invasion with no clear casus belli or war aims.

Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must explictly authorize military force if Iraq fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, diplomats said Thursday.
Instead, the United States is floating a compromise that would give inspectors a chance to test Baghdad’s will to cooperate on the ground. If the inspectors report that Iraq is obstructing their work, the United States would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action, the diplomats said

(As an aside for any remaining Mark Steyn fans reading this blog, it appears that none of the countries he claimed were “on board” for an invasion stepped up to support it, and several explicitly opposed it.)

This outcome is going to be very helpful to us in getting full co-operation from Indonesia in the hunt for the Bali bombers and their backers. The last thing we need in this context is a reminder of the ‘deputy sheriff’ and similar episodes. So far the Indonesian response has been much better than I expected, but a lot of goodwill is going to be needed over coming months and years.
No amount of good news for the world as a whole can offset the continuing sadness and anger of Australians seeing bereaved survivors returning from Bali, and families here being forced to give up hope. But the prospects of a united world fighting against this evil are better than they have been at any time since the immediate aftermath of September 11.