It's a matter of perception: will the UN be perceived as having a different agenda from the US or helping the US in reshaping Iraq?

There are people shooting at the coalition forces in Iraq, and the only question they have of the U.N. is: will the U.N. allow them to regain their absolute power over Iraq? Allow them to move back into the palaces, regain their privilege and wealth, and begin refilling the mass graves with their enemies? Just like last time?

Try and peel back the rose colored glasses for just one minute. It isn't the majority of the Iraqi populace fighting us. It's Saddam's goons. They don't want a free Iraq. They want power. And the only reason they could have for wanting the U.N. there is because the U.N. would give up a lot more easily than we are.

One of the greatest weapons that the thugs of this world have is the naivete' of the well-meaning.

By the way, we already found out before the war what the U.N. agenda on Iraq was: The status quo, and billions in oil-for-food money flowing through U.N. coffers. Some of which is still there.

But if the UN gave orders to the US rather than the other way around and the UN behaved much better towards the population, then there's hope.

What orders would they give? What would the all-wise United Nations tell us to do that would Fix Everything? You don't know. What would "behaving better towards the population" consist of in real terms and tactics? You don't know that either. Platitudes.

Communism is no more threat to the US than asteroid Eros is.

Yeah. Tell the troops that kept the Soviet Union off your ass for the past fifty years. Or maybe I just imagined the Soviet Union, too.