>>Doug, remember last week or so Powell was saying that it was pretty certain
>>they would get the war resolution through the Security Council, and you
>>asked "would Powell say that if it wasn't true?"
>
>Yeah, I remember, and I'm glad it's looking like he was wrong. But they
>must have known this at the time, so I still don't understand why he'd say
>something with confidence that wouldn't work out a week later. Was it part
>of the sales effort, or are they thoroughly self-deluded?
>
>Doug
Clearly there was sales effort (can't say about self-delusion). It is routine Security Council practice for Countries wavering to refuse to make their views known until the final moments. This minimizes pressure, maximizes negotiating leverage and sometimes saves embarrassment (Ambassadors sometimes really don't know until the last minute).
The result can be a game theorist's pleasure park. In this case, some holdouts have extra incentives since staying low may avoid an unnecessary cost. To flush out votes the U.S. and U.K. have needed to create a bandwagon thus raising the possibility that a holdout will wait too long and be left behind (since the U.S can afford to lose one of the swing votes and still get its numerical majority). Hence the upbeat talk.
Taking a guess (purely a guess) the uncertainty may turn out to be too much for the U.K. who seems to have received legal (and political?) advice that visibly failing to win a vote puts them in a worse position than not having one. But one word of caution for future calculations. One shouldn't assume too much bravery into the position of the undecided. I suspect that a number of the participants themselves don't know what they will do at the crunch and they themselves may never know if there isn't a vote - despite the assurances they must give each side after the fact.
Paul A.