Word: ultimatum
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...written, the events of the past week are unlikely to be cited as the fateful moments. The decision by the U.S. and its allies to withdraw a UN Security Council resolution authorizing war after failing to win sufficient support to pass it, and President Bush's final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave his country within 48 hours, are simply the outcome of processes and decisions taken months, even years earlier. Historians seeking to explain the war will certainly debate the relative importance of a number of decisions and events over the past decade: the first Bush administration's reluctance...
...This week's failure by the U.S. and Britain to win backing for a UN ultimatum to Iraq authorizing force if Baghdad fails to meet a 10-day disarmament deadline underscores the fact that the UN process has, if anything, weakened rather than strengthened international support for a war. Halfway through March, the supposed critical climatic window for military action is closing fast and the UN Security Council looks unlikely to authorize force against Iraq anytime soon. Nobody expected the French and Russians to be brandishing a veto this late in the game, much less the failure of the Bush...
...British troops currently deployed alongside the American invasion force. Prime Minister Tony Blair faces a high level of opposition from within his own party to invading Iraq without UN authorization, and he may not survive politically if he goes ahead without UN backing. Failure to pass a compromise ultimatum resolution setting a longer deadline and making specific disarmament demands of Iraq will leave Blair - and possibly other key European supporters of the U.S. position, such as Spain and Italy - deeply mired in domestic political crisis...
...have no credibility." He found it "a bit odd" that Baghdad, with "one of the best organized regimes in the Arab world," should claim to have no records of the alleged destruction of its stocks of anthrax and VX nerve agent. He was prepared to contemplate a timeline and ultimatum for the destruction of key weapons and their building blocks, saying that the Iraqis "cannot drag it on forever." He argued that American military might had been instrumental in what recent progress there has been on Iraqi disarmament. "I don't think there would have been any inspection...
Maybe so. I would say that an ultimatum or a timeline is a way of exerting a very strong pressure. Such a thing without an outside pressure of force is not very useful. But with the maintenance of what you have, yes, I think that shows that they cannot drag it on forever...