The much-maligned foreign policy of the Bush Administration may be about to score another foreign-policy coup, according to the AP and the BBC. Edith Lederer (AP) reports that the UN Security Council, according to German and French sources, may wind up passing a US resolution on Iraq on legitimizing the interim government -- unanimously:

The United States and Britain made a last-minute addition Monday to their Iraq resolution that appeared to satisfy French and German demands to spell out Iraq's "security partnership" with U.S.-led forces. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said he expects the Security Council to approve the resolution on Tuesday afternoon, and council diplomats said the vote could be unanimous.

The French and German delegations had demanded that explicit language be included in the resolution giving Iraq command over any security forces in the country. However, American negotiators apparently have overcome that obstacle:

The text now welcomes the exchange of letters between Iraq's new prime minister and Secretary of State Colin Powell and their pledge to work together to reach agreement on "the full range fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations." It also notes "that Iraqi security forces are responsible to appropriate Iraqi ministers, that the government of Iraq has authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the multinational force to engage in operations with it."

While the new language doesn't mention an Iraqi veto, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said "there are a lot of improvements" and "the text is going in the right direction now." ...

Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said the French amendment was "much clearer, but the new (U.S.) text reflects our concerns ... and we can live with that. I think we have reached a stage where the resolution has a very good text," he said. "My feeling is we have found a compromise."

So once again, Bush has gone to the UN, played some hardball and a little Let's Make A Deal, and pulled out an agreement that basically looks like what we wanted in the first place -- and may wind up with unanimous consent, just as with 1441. Bush gets to stick to his June 30 timetable and continue to keep security forces in Iraq under Anglo-American command, legitimized by the UNSC and the new Iraqi government. Once again, the chances for a representative government succeeding in Iraq at least doubled.

Weren't these guys supposedly unable to work with the international community?

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