“You have to hand it to the Bush generation of neo-conservatives. They are nothing if not optimistic. Even in the rubble of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, they saw reason for hope.

The White House apparently believed that the atrocity would prove to be a tipping point that would persuade nations like India and Pakistan to send their divisions to help police Iraq, without no more of all that earlier talk about shared authority.

Colin Powell was dispatched to the UN once more to sell this dubious idea only to find that those nations that were reluctant to send their soldiers to a dangerous and volatile place to serve in a US-led occupation force before, still felt that way, only more strongly.

This stand has been portrayed by some in Washington as the typical manoeuvring of a morally bankrupt international community aimed at extracting political gain from a tragedy. Washington’s critics, according to this view of the world, will stop at nothing to clip America’s wings.

In truth, most UN members would happily put their troops under the command of an American general in the event of a justified war. No other military comes close in efficiency or technology, apart from residual concerns from the latest war that the friendly fire issue has clearly not been entirely solved.” Guardian/UK