More Foreign Policy

This is from William Safire, writing at the New York Times.

Then France appeared to have been struck by sweet reason. Instead of ending sanctions on a regime that no longer existed, France floated a proposal merely suspending sanctions until the Security Council decides that the new post-Saddam Iraq is not making weapons of mass destruction.

Some compromise. That neat trick is designed to force the U.S. into gaining the U.N. inspectors' approval before sanctions are ended. It would keep a heavy U.N. foot on Iraqi pipelines and keep France in the reconstruction contracts business. Suspension would put the emerging Iraq in a class with Libya, still suspended after its downing of Pan Am 103.

Fortunately, Colin Powell is not about to be sandbagged again. State spent yesterday preparing a U.N. resolution to decisively end, not merely suspend, economic sanctions on Iraq. If carefully crafted, it should contain language similar to that of the oil-for-food resolution. That would guarantee that proceeds from future oil sales held in trust for the interim Iraqi authority would be immune from attachment by previous claimants.

In plain language, that means that sales of Iraqi oil sold starting now would be for rebuilding the nation, and could not be snatched by France and Russia to pay Saddam's old arms debts. Chirac and Putin won't like that a bit. Would either of them veto the will of a Security Council majority and stand before the Arab world as greedy obstructionists? Let's see.

Well, Mr. Safire doesn't seem to be on the same page as Mr. Gingrich. Doesn't he realize that praising the State Department is currently taboo? But besides that, at a certain point we have to prove to the rest of the world that Iraq has destroyed its weapons of mass destruction. We can't pretend that because Iraq is in our hands, it's now trustworthy (unless we intend to keep Iraq in our hands, which I've been ensured we don't). So at some point we have to make sure that the rest of the world understands that they are safe from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Frankly the sooner the better--the longer we let this drag out, the more dopey it makes us look.