Derb, you write:

(1): if GWB is willing to go to war without UN approval, why didn’t he do so yesterday? or last month? or a year ago?

This strikes me as a pretty unpersuasive argument. I’m with you that things don’t look as good or as certain as they did a few months ago. But it seems to me obvious that Bush is willing to go to war without UN approval given the right circumstances. After all if Saddam launched scuds on American bases in Saudi Arabia tomorrow, Bush wouldn’t wait for UN approval. The question is where Bush’s tipping point is. He threw the dice on getting UN approval and he may be regretting it now, I don’t know. But it seems to me an odd argument to say that just because he hasn’t gone to war yet without UN approval, he’ll therefor never go to war without UN approval.