For some time, the Canadian government has been floating ideas for a new UN resolution consisting of a set of specific demands with which Saddam would have to comply or face war. This is the kind of thing I’ve been advocating for some time. It would get away from the fatal ambiguity of 1441, which turns on the interpretation of words like ‘active compliance’ and ‘serious consequences’.

The idea had no hope while Bush thought he could get a resolution that effectively authorised war. It’s been revived by what initially seemed a clever move on Blair’s part – an ultimatum modelled on the 1914 Austrian demarche to Serbia, written so that Saddam couldn’t possibly accept it (the only important element was the first one, that Saddam should admit to having the weapons he has so far denied having). The difficulty for Blair is that he did not of course, admit that his proposal was designed to fail. Hence, he will find it hard to reject proposals for an ultimatum that incorporates many of his key demands, such as out-of-country interviews with scientists, but doesn’t contain anything guaranteed to be rejected. The ‘middle six’ countries are obviously keen for something like this, and the French are already hinting that they could be persuaded to accept a specific ultimatum backed by the threat of war, as long as it didn’t give the US the right to make a unilateral judgement that the conditions had not been met.

Blair’s big problem would then be persuading Bush to go along with such an approach. All the evidence is that Bush would refuse, but the arguments in favor are strong. Assuming Saddam is hiding weapons, he might reject the ultimatum, in which case Bush would get everything he wants – UNSC authorisation, British participation and almost-certain access to Turkish bases. Alternatively, out-of-country interviews might produce the long-sought ‘smoking gun’, again giving Bush a legitimate case for war.

On the other side of a coin, the alternative looks unattractive. Unless he could stop a vote altogether, Bush would be in the position of vetoing a UNSC resolution which would wipe out any pretence of a legal basis for the war and (if the opinion polls are right) leave him without majority support even in the US itself.

By far the best outcome for the world would be another six months of stepped-up inspections, during which time the great powers could turn their attention away from Iraq to the much bigger problem of North Korea. (Ideally, they’d do something about Israel/Palestine as well, but that would take the scenario from highly optimistic to totally fantastic).