An interesting speech from our esteemed Foreign Minister this afternoon.. Jack Straw, while not quite managing to bring the house down, did demonstrate with his answers to what may well have been a series of non-sequetorial interruptions, what the government was having to deal with from those opposing military action, while laying out why military action, is justified..
Jack dealt with the question in five parts.
He saw it breaking down into, why Iraq in particular, why not more time for inspections, why a new resolution if Iraq is already in contravention of an existing sanction, why not a policy of continued containment, and is there a double standard with the government's support of Israel v Palestine..a conflict of interests so to speak..
His answers.. edited for brevity.. were, Saddam's had ten years and disregarded 13 UN Security Council resolutions, still hasn't complied with the terms he agreed to at the end of Desert Storm, and he's a nutter who has a country bigger than France to hide things in.. that further time for more inspections would be pointless. Hussein has been raised in the age old Ottoman style of politics, and what would seem an humanitarian extension for more inspections bu the good folk of the west, would be to him a gesture of weakness, tantamount to permission to continue stockpiling his arms elsewhere while refining his plans against the Kurds and the west. It was also pointed out that when South Africa had to disarm following the abolition of aparteid, it took 9 inspectors three years to assure the world there was nothing that could possibly commit genocide in the arsenal. Iraq has had 12 years, and more than 100 inspectors off and on, and still they haven't a clue...the new resolution, says Jack, is to demonstrate to a doubtfull world that neither the US nor Britain want to rush off, guns blazing, to crush poor Saddam and the Ba'athist government. It is not recissary, as Jack so rightly pointed out, that this resolution even be asked for, becuase Iraq is already contravening the demands of 1441, but it is to allow the well-meaning impediments to a settlement of the problem a chance to see the logic and the right of action.. further containment, said Jack, would allow Hussein more time to increase his arsenal, as he has been doing since inspectors withdrew in 1998, and would serve to increase the suffering of the Iraqi people..
Now as to the last of the five.. is there a double standard in the west when Israel is brought into the equation..?
Yes, said Jack, there is.
Mind you, there is a not very subtle diference between an ally and a declared enemy, one which should be obvious to anyone. Jack continued to say that of course, the government was constantly urging both the Israeli's and the Palistinian authorities to follow the UN resolutions which bind them, intimating that the Middle East as a whole was at this time, a matter for concern.
They vote on the government position this evening. One will watch the results with.. 'bated breath..