Word from Washington is that the Bush administration is prepared to go back to the United Nations Security Council for another resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq — if it can, in doing so, get France to come on board. The idea is an ill-considered and dangerous one. Resolution 1441 clearly authorizes the use of force against Iraq should the country be found to be in “material breach” of the resolution’s requirements. By failing to disclose all weapons of mass destruction in its weapons report, failing to make Iraqi scientists available for interviews, failing to disarm, and by deliberately deceiving U.N. inspectors — all of which was painstakingly laid out by Secretary Powell yesterday — Iraq is plainly in material breach. Thus, under Resolution 1441, and under the U.N. Charter, any member nation is authorized to bring Iraq to justice.

By going back to the Security Council for a new resolution, America would be declaring that all U.N. resolutions are automatically expired upon final passage. If Resolution 1441, not to mention the cease fire at the end of the Gulf War that Saddam Hussein has flouted, do not authorize American action, what would? If a new resolution is necessary to enforce Resolution 1441, why would a new resolution not then be necessary to enforce that resolution? The logic is recursive and would render meaningless all resolutions passed by the United Nations, such as Resolution 242, which is supposed to lay the cornerstone for diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. As Anne Bayefsky, an international lawyer and board member of U.N. Watch, told us last night: “The credibility of the United Nations is directly on the line. If the resolutions which have been passed so far are not backed up by concrete actions, which entail more than an indefinite period of inspections and containment, then no serious human rights violator will ever take the United Nations Security Council seriously in the future.”