Originally posted by Delance
But Bush is not alone with Blair... There's some european countries (like Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria and Poland) and Australia backing him up.
MSNBC has a list in one of their articles that details how each member of the UN Security Council feels about the whole thing. As noted above, Bulgaria and Spain (who are currently on the Security Council) both feel that war should occur with or without UN support.
Germany, currently a member of the Security Council, feels that even if UN support is granted, war should not be declared (whether this means that Germany will automatically veto any war declaration or abstain I don't know).
Syria, another member of the Security Council, claims that sanctions should be dropped. I'm guessing that they're firmly against a war. (incidentally, iirc, the Syrians also replaced the US on the Human Rights Commission, although I could be confusing the Syrians with another equally repressive nation).
There is a rather large argument going on about all of this in Europe right now. Some of those involved are claiming that its high time the EU set aside member disagreements on this issue and other international issues, and voted to produce "official" EU statements that the member nations would then be bound by.
One other thing that I've noted. Looking at the list above, you see two definite groups. The first is English speakers. I would hazard a guess that this is because the nations involved are fairly similar in temperment, and two of them (the US and Great Britain) have a long history of "doing what needs to be done".
The other nations are up and coming powers in Europe. While its true that Spain and Portugal were powerful in the past, that power dwindled (afaik) shortly after the New World was opened, and its only been in the past few decades that the Iberian peninsula has once again started to act instead of be acted upon.
Poland and Bulgaria are both former Soviet client states, and both are largely free of the internal racial strife that is afflicting many of the other former Warsaw Pact nations. They are now able to move into the international arena, and I have a suspicion that their view on Iraq, whatever it may be, is very similar to the view found on the Iberian peninsula.
And something regarding Bush, Poland, and the LA Times that I found amusing a bit back...
Shortly after he was elected President, W. Bush made a tour of Europe. Many of the news stories about this trip focused on the protesters that greeted him at each stop. While I didn't read most of the stories, I did read the one in the LA Times about his trip to Poland. Upon closer examination, I noticed a few interesting things about this story.
1.) There were only a handful (and I mean handful - at most 150, iirc)) of people present protesting Bush's presence.
2.) There was a much larger group of people present rallying in support of him.
3.) The LA Times article spent as much space describing one sign that a protester was carrying as it did talking about the entire group of Bush supporters.
Completely un-related to the Iraq issue, but the mention of Poland reminded me of it.
. As to Polish (and also some other post-communist countries) view on Iraq issue - its not a matter of gaining power on international arena - we simply know what totalitarian regime is first hand - and now we think that no other nation deserves to have such a political system. Maybe some of you forget that iraqi people suffer greatly under Hussain`s rule - and number of eventual civilian cassaulties of war would be much less than the number of people killed by his regime if he stays in power.
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