If Mirage exists (the French foreign minister is, according to Reuters, denying that there is a secret plan), it has to rest on the assumption that the UN ‘occupation forces’ will be able to do their job effectively. The history of the last few years would suggest otherwise. In a recent book on UN peacekeeping (which I reviewed for NRODT) with the accurate but depressing title, Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s, the author, Frederick H. Fleitz, makes the point that UN troops have only been able to work well when they have the consent of both sides – hardly likely to be the case in Iraq.