[Nettime-bold] Arm-Twisting

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/21/international/middleeast/21IRA
Q.html?th

US and UK are trying to arm-twist poorer and weaker members of 
Security Council into supporting their war, hoping to secure 9 votes 
and than co-erce Russia, China and France into abstaining from 
veto.

This is probably a dead end. Turkey just turned down a $26B U.S. 
bribe. There is no reason to believe the U.S. will have more luck 
with the Security Council members.

The New York Times says Bulgaria supports the U.S. - this is not 
what I heard from Bulgarian representative during the special 
meeting of Security Council. He supported French. He even spoke 
French.

Germany, being the part of the 'Old Europe' axis is against, too. 
And Syria, of course, will be against. There is nothing Syria could 
gain by the U.S. war on its neighbor.

Spain may support UK and US, but at the price of electoral loss at 
home. Pakistan's risks are bigger, since they won't only lose 
elections, they will lose their heads to radical Muslim majority that 
rules that country in reality, if they cast their vote with the US.

In the special meeting, Angola clearly stated its opposition to the 
war. Chile and Mexico are probably too indebted to U.S. to oppose 
it. But Guinea and Cameroon (a formerly German colony) may 
swing both ways.

Cameroon's representative delivered a long speech in which he said 
absolutely nothing. He will probably vote with majority. Guinea's 
representative warned of imminent and disastrous collapse of the 
U.N. - signaling that he might, vaguely, oppose the war.

So, let's do the count: US, UK, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Cameroon for 
war - that's 6 not 9. The US might pressure Guinea, Angola, 
Pakistan, Bulgaria, Syria, hoping to gain at least 3 of 5, but they 
might gain none or not enough...

Maybe it would be more profitable for US to have the UN Security 
Council to gather to pass an anti-war resolution - then at least the 
U.S. could veto it.

ivo

 

_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold