Impotent Arab League puts on brave face

That most tired of horses, the Arab League, would have us believe yesterday that Iraq had accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

Naji Sabri, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, insisted the resolution had diluted Washington's desire for war. The Iraqi parliament, no less – only slightly less democratic than the Roman Senate during the reign of the Emperor Nero – was being summoned to vote on the UN resolution.

And if the people of Iraq decide UN inspectors should be allowed into their country, who would expect Saddam Hussein to reject their wish?

In reality, of course, the Arab League – the most powerless and impotent of all the animals in the Arab stable – has simply gone along with what looks best.

"I think we can expect a positive position by the Iraqis," Egypt's Foreign Minister, Ahmed Maher, announced. "They haven't yet taken the formal decision on their attitude towards the resolution."

The Pentagon's announcement, "leaked" through the The New York Times, that it would have 250,000 troops ready for an invasion is clearly timed to persuade President Saddam that abiding by the resolution is a good idea. But the Arab League's belief that the resolution really restrains the United States from invading shows just how far from reality the League is.

Until Syria's vote for the resolution on Friday, every Arab was supposed to believe that the UN vote would provide a trigger for a US invasion. The moment Syria voted for the resolution, every Arab was supposed to believe it deprived the US of the trigger.

Farouk al-Sharaa, the Syrian Foreign Minister, insisted yesterday that the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had sent him a letter "in which he stressed there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq and that if the US administration had any intention of resorting to military action, this resolution wouldn't have taken seven weeks."

Syria, needless to say, will try to persuade the UN to appoint some Arab inspectors on the team to Iraq. It will be interesting to see if this mournful appeal is successful. According to Mr Maher, Iraqi acceptance of the resolution would depend on the inspection team's "neutrality" and their respect for "Iraqi sovereignty".

In the past, this has meant a refusal to allow UN inspectors to enter presidential palaces in Iraq. Baghdad's concern, in the past, was that UN inspectors were being used by the CIA to spy on Iraq – a claim The New York Times previously confirmed to be true but now refers to as an "allegation".