Warblogging increasingly resembles one of those that millennarian religions that persists long after the time when the predicted end of the world as we know it fails to materialise. A large proportion of them seem to have given up pretending that their rants have anything to do with reality, preferring to see themselves as some sort of right-wing equivalent to gangsta rap. The most striking manifestation is the proliferation of semi-ironic, semi-serious “most bloodthirsty warblogger”competitions, complete with contestants and their fans flashing skin to attract votes.

Steven Den Beste* is too sensible for this kind of nonsense. But he seems to be incapable of updating his model to accommodate new data. For Den Beste and other warbloggers, the desired outcome is one in which the US launches a unilateral and successful war on Iraq, dismissing the UN as irrelevant and establishing itself as a benevolent hegemon.

Instead what we actually see is the US negotiating with the French to pass a resolution which, as I predicted some time ago forswears a unilateral invasion in return for a commitment that “if inspectors report obstruction to the UNSC, the US and UK will not necessarily accept a veto on military action cast by, say, France.” In effect, whereas the US wanted one resolution, and the French wanted two, we have ended up with 1.5, precisely the kind of messy UN compromise that warbloggers loathe.

The accompanying rhetoric is equally unsatisfactory from the warblogger viewpoint. Colin Powell states “this is not a resolution for war….Everybody keeps looking for war. We keep looking for peace.” And of course, George Bush has announced that the abandonment of WMD programs would constitute regime change.

One might suppose from all this talk of peace that people like Den Beste who want a unilateral war, would be feeling unhappy. In particular:
(i) The US has agreed that if Saddam accepts inspectors and the inspectors do not report him for noncompliance, there will be no war
(ii) If the inspectors do report him for noncompliance, the matter will be taken back to the UNSC which, since the French have effectively foregone their veto, will authorise a multilateral response along lines similar to Gulf War I
(iii) If the French or Russians veto this, the Americans will invade anyway
(iv) In the light of (ii) and (iii), Saddam will prefer compliance to suicide.

Not a bit of it, according to Den Beste. “No matter what happens, the US will act and the UN is effectively dead.” To reach this conclusion he assumes that Saddam will refuse to comply, thereby handing the US/UN a loaded gun. One apparent reason for this is the belief that Saddam can’t confess to having had a WMD program without providing the basis for an invasion. I don’t think there’s legal basis for this belief, but more to the point, particularly after the North Korean debacle, there’s no political basis for it. If Saddam confesses and invites the inspectors to a huge bonfire of all his chemical weapons equipment, calutrons etc. the idea that the US government will then be able to launch an invasion to punish him for lying is silly. So the first stage in den Beste’s argument relies on Saddam being suicidal.

The second stage of the argument is a standard post-millennial redefinition of terms, similar to Bush’s redefinition of regime change. Supposing that Saddam fails to comply and the UN authorises an invasion to overthrow him, “Given that the US did not blink and did not give in to the “two resolution” requirement, then if France and Russia knuckle under and don’t veto then the UNSC will widely be viewed as an American rubber stamp. ” The weasel word here is ‘widely’. No doubt Den Beste will see it that way, but the French will correctly regard themselves as having kept their position at the top table. Certainly an episode of this kind will set no precedent for the doctrine of unilateral pre-emption.

A final interesting aspect is Den Beste’s increasingly weak insistence that “Iraqi failure is to be reported to the UNSC for further consideration, but it is also characterized as a “material breach” of existing UNSC resolutions, which means that the US would still be free to act.” It’s clear that the whole point of the negotiations has been to kill off the idea that the US can invade Iraq on the basis of past violations alone. Den Beste obviously recognises this, but is unwilling to admit it.

Of course, the US could invade anyway and announce whatever pretext it chose. But if that’s the plan, why go through a pointless (in fact counterproductive) charade of consulting the UN? It’s clear that the dominant group in the Administration has realised that the idea of a unilateral war is unsalable.

The fact is that, failing really stupid decisions by both Saddam and the French, warblogging as we know it is dead. Just don’t tell the zombies.

*Note I’ve edited this post to correct the spelling and capitalization of Steven Den Beste’s name.