Throughout the year 2002, Bush made no secret of his desire to unilaterally overthrow the Iraqi dictatorial regime (called "regime change"). But the opinion polls were unflagging; the American people in sizable majorities did not want the U.S. to go it alone.
OK said Mr. Bush; he'll go to the U.N. and have the Security Council resume a rigorous inspection process in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The other nations then insisted that if Iraq materially breaches the U.N. resolution, the U.S. would go back to the Security Council for any further action. Yet Bush made it clear that if the U.N. did not act, the U.S., and its very few allies, would do so unilaterally.
It should be noted that in responding to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Bush's more deliberative father, then President Bush, first asked the U.N. for a resolution, then asked Congress, after the November elections not before as did his son, for its approval the following January.
Treaties that deal with arms control or a real weapon of mass destruction called global warming are irritants to our White House-based west Texas sheriff. The Bush Administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, declined to support the small arms treaty, the land mines treaty and the verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention. Mr. Bush refuses to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for ratification by the Senate which rejected it under President Clinton. There are other similar avoidances.
OK said Mr. Bush; he'll go to the U.N. and have the Security Council resume a rigorous inspection process in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The other nations then insisted that if Iraq materially breaches the U.N. resolution, the U.S. would go back to the Security Council for any further action. Yet Bush made it clear that if the U.N. did not act, the U.S., and its very few allies, would do so unilaterally.
It should be noted that in responding to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Bush's more deliberative father, then President Bush, first asked the U.N. for a resolution, then asked Congress, after the November elections not before as did his son, for its approval the following January.
Treaties that deal with arms control or a real weapon of mass destruction called global warming are irritants to our White House-based west Texas sheriff. The Bush Administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, declined to support the small arms treaty, the land mines treaty and the verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention. Mr. Bush refuses to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for ratification by the Senate which rejected it under President Clinton. There are other similar avoidances.