Brookings Experts Discuss President Bush's Address to the Nation

Transcript

Mr. James M. Lindsay: Yesterday President Bush announced that the United States had ended its diplomatic efforts at the United Nations and, obviously, last night gave his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave the country. Just a few basic opening observations; one, I think it is a bit premature to write the obituary for the United Nations based on the decision not to submit the resolution, though clearly this is a blow for the UN Security Council. But clearly, the United States has a lot of interest in the United Nations, and I think it's not to stretch the point too far to suggest that if the UN didn't exist we might have to invent it. In fact, it's not even inconceivable that the Bush administration might not find itself returning to the United Nations in dealing with the post-Hussein Iraq or dealing with the issue of North Korea.

I think it's also fairly clear from the President's comments and those of other senior officials over the last few days and the way these comps have been reciprocated in other capitols that the failure of diplomacy has created some major rifts among the United States and other major powers. I think one thing to keep in mind is so far we have no evidence that the rifts that have developed between Washington, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow have hurt the international intelligence and law enforcement cooperation on the war on terrorism. In a paradoxical sense the war in Iraq might intensify cooperation in the war on terrorism, simply for the fear that we might be seeing attacks in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq.

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