Defeat for Foreign Office would put another dent in the Rolls-Royce of diplomatic world

Only one week ago, British officials were breathing confidence that the infamous "second resolution" would succeed. As of yesterday, the very best outcome they appeared to countenance was the requisite majority of nine votes in favour – a majority that would then be scuttled by a lone French veto. This would give Britain what some are calling the "moral majority", while casting France as the isolated villain of the piece. But far worse could be in store – namely a defeat for the resolution that would place France and other opponents of war in the majority at the UN and on the high moral ground.

After the investment of so much time and effort, the defeat or withdrawal of the resolution would amount to a catastrophic failure on the part of the British Foreign Office, which is seen in many parts of the world as the Rolls-Royce of diplomatic machines.

Reputations, however, tend to outlive their justification. And while Iraq may turn out to be one of the most spectacular failures of British foreign policy in recent years, trailing behind it splits with France, Germany and the United States, there have been others. In the past two years, it is actually hard to find a clear British foreign policy success.

In the Middle East, Britain has tried hard to revive a peace process left in shreds after the failure of President Clinton's Camp David summit and the election as Israeli Prime Minister of Ariel Sharon. Washington has shown little inclination to support British or European initiatives, relying as they do on a view of the Palestinian cause that the US administration does not share. In recent months, Britain has seen its tentative bid to host a peace conference scuppered by Washington. It managed, just, to host a much-publicised meeting of Palestinian representatives, but the main delegates were refused permission to travel and participated only by video-link. If the peace process could be revived after the Iraqi leadership has been toppled, the word is that any high-profile conference would be held not in Britain, but in Spain. That would be Spain's reward for supporting the United States on Iraq.

Two other foreign policy projects undertaken by this government have similarly run into the sand. Efforts to take a principled stand against the rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe have been singularly ineffective. Britain almost split the Commonwealth in its efforts to secure Zimbabwe's suspension. How puny and ineffective the agreed sanctions were was shown up when Mr Mugabe attended a pan-African conference in Paris after Britain failed to have the invitation blocked. The English cricket team exposed the emptiness of the sanctions further, justifiably asking why sportsmen should take a stand when dozens of British companies were operating in Zimbabwe, unhindered and undiscouraged by Her Majesty's Government.

Perhaps the most comprehensive failure to date was the attempt to settle the 300-year old dispute with Spain over Gibraltar. Seen as Mr Blair's project, the intention was to persuade Gibraltarians to accept an agreement under which Britain and Spain would share sovereignty in perpetuity, while the colony's language and institutions were preserved. The calculation was that changes in Spain – an amenable Spanish Prime Minister (Jose Maria Aznar) and Spain's membership of the European Union and Nato – would convince Gibraltarians that they had more to gain than lose from a settlement. The Foreign Office appeared genuinely surprised at the level of resistance in Gibraltar. When residents of the Rock demonstrated that they would not reverse their near-unanimous vote against a less favourable settlement in 1967, the whole project was summarily, but very quietly, dropped.

To blame this string of failures either on the Foreign Office exclusively, or on the current Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, would be wrong. In Mr Blair's second term, Downing Street has been steering foreign policy as at no time in the recent past. And where there has been failure, it has been not only in implementation, but in conception and, above all, in a miscalculation of how the other party will respond.