A final, forceful attempt to place maximum pressure on the French

Only one question remained after yesterday's Azores summit: whether the United Nations can be persuaded, in extremis, to throw its collective weight behind the Iraqi war that has now become well-nigh inevitable, or whether the rifts dividing the Security Council will have to wait until after the war to be addressed.

Nothing said by Tony Blair or George Bush gave the slightest suggestion that war can be averted. The leaders said they would give diplomacy another 24 hours to run its course but they weren't talking about diplomacy to change the mind of Saddam Hussein. They were talking about diplomacy to maintain, if at all possible, the integrity of the United Nations.

Neither sounded particularly optimistic, as France maintained its refusal to back an ultimatum leading to war and sought, together with Germany and Russia, another meeting of Security Council foreign ministers sometime this week.

However, President Jacques Chirac did at least offer to accept a speedier 30-day deadline for Iraq to disarm, provided the move was endorsed by the weapons inspectors.

"One month, two months, I am ready to accept any accord on this point that has the approval of the inspectors," M. Chirac said hours before the Azores summit, "Everything the inspectors propose should be accepted" he said.

The offer was immediately rejected by US Vice President Dick Cheney who said "it's difficult to take the French seriously" as he dismissed the disarmament deadline.

Mr Blair said it was a "tragedy" when the United States and Europe do not stand together but added: "We have reached the point of decision." President Bush, in particular, left no doubt as to his intentions. Most of his statement at the after-summit press conference assumed Saddam's overthrow was little more than a formality, and he focused instead on his hopes for a post-Saddam Iraq.

"We will push as quickly as possible for an Iraqi interim authority to draw upon the talents of Iraq's people to rebuild their nation. We are committed to the goal of a unified Iraq with democratic institutions," he said. "To achieve this vision, we will work closely with the international commmunity, including the United Nations and our coalition partners."

In other words, UN co-operation, in his mind, now means post-war co-operation. Mr Blair expressed similar sentiments, saying it would become necessary to "step back and figure out how to make the UN work better" but in the meantime the UN would need to take a prominent role in reconstructing Iraq.

All eyes will now turn to the French government to see if it can offer any last-minute flexibility in its position.

One British analyst, Toby Dodge of the University of Warwick, commented yesterday: "The whole point of the summit was to put maximum pressure on the French, with the idea that you have a united front of Spain, the US and Britain, and this puts the ball firmly back in the French court in New York."

Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, said time had clearly run out, on diplomacy as well as peace. "There may be things which the UN can do together and regain its sense of direction, such as some aspects of the reconstruction of Iraq," he said. And he cautioned: "We should not undertake it as an American military occupation primarily, and not make it look as if this is a new Western imperialism."

There was a different reaction from Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq, who saw a "slightly divided" message emerging from the Azores summit, with President Bush clamouring unambiguously for war while Mr Blair and Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish prime minister, seemed more interested in trying to unite the world behind an ultimatum.

The divisions, real or perceived, will have a direct bearing on Mr Blix's diminishing role. He is due to brief the UN Security Council on his latest findings tomorrow. It is now far from clear, however, whether the briefing will take place at all, or whether by tomorrow the bombs will already be raining down on Baghdad.