VOL. XLI

No. 51

21-December-1998

The Political Scene

The "sustained" US and UK air strikes triggered byUNSCOMs negative report on Iraqs cooperation with its arms inspectors probablysignal the end of the inspection process and appear to have finally killed off whateverconsensus on Iraq remained in the Security Council. The French position remainedambiguous, but China was openly opposed to the US action and the Russians reacted veryangrily indeed. Regionally there was little evidence to support...