UNITED NATIONS — The United States presented a draft resolution on Iraq on Wednesday to the full 15-nation U.N. Security Council in an apparent effort to pressure the council to vote soon or risk watching Washington act on its own.
After several days of closed-door negotiations among the Security Council’s five permanent members had yielded no visible progress toward compromise, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said that the end of debate was “in sight” and that it was possible that the Security Council could fail to reach agreement. President Bush has also turned up the heat on the United Nations to act this week, emphasizing in speeches that it risks becoming irrelevant if it does not confront Iraq.
It remained uncertain Wednesday when the issue might come up for a formal vote. The White House strategy could be part diplomatic bluff to pressure France, Russia and China to compromise on terms of a U.N. resolution outlining how to handle Iraq. Along with the United States and Great Britain, those three powers are permanent members of the Security Council and hold veto power. All three have refused to go along with the Bush administration’s preferred wording. Britain supports the U.S. position.
Bush’s pressure tactics on the U.N. present large domestic political risks for him and his Republican Party. If the U.N. refuses to follow his lead, he risks being perceived as a warmonger on the eve of congressional elections Nov. 5 that could give Republicans control of the legislature. Opinion polls show most Americans prefer to have U.N. backing for any U.S. confrontation with Iraq.
However, Washington’s moves Wednesday also could signal that the Bush administration is losing patience with the United Nations and is preparing to abandon diplomacy and accelerate plans to lead its own coalition into a military confrontation with Iraq, as Bush has threatened.
“They have some amount of time left, but not a lot,” Fleischer said.
Bush signed a $355.1 billion defense-spending bill at the White House Wednesday, observing: “We’ve asked our military to prepare for conflict in Iraq if it proves necessary.”