In a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day Pres­i­dent Bush made a cryp­tic com­ment that if Sad­dam Hus­sein com­plies with the UNSC res­o­lu­tions, then that means “the regime has changed.” He also sig­naled a new­found respect for diplo­macy.

“We’ve tried diplo­macy,” Mr. Bush said when asked about the issue today. “We’re try­ing it one more time. I believe the free world, if we make up our mind to, can dis­arm this man peace­fully.“
At the same time he said, “The stated pol­icy of our gov­ern­ment, the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion and this admin­is­tra­tion, is regime change — because we don’t believe he is going to change.“
…
“How­ever, if he were to meet all the con­di­tions of the United Nations, the con­di­tions that I’ve described very clearly in terms that every­body can under­stand, that in itself will sig­nal the regime has changed.“
Those were the last words of the brief Oval Office appear­ance, and aides shooed reporters out before they could ask follow-up questions.

At the same time that the U.S. is try­ing diplo­macy “one more time,” it is grow­ing increas­ingly impa­tient with the Secu­rity Coun­cil on res­o­lu­tions autho­riz­ing force against Iraq if — when? — it fails to meet demands.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thor­oughly con­fused by all of this.
Which may be the point. A lit­tle ambi­gu­ity, some might call it mad­ness, in for­eign affairs can some­times be a good thing. Nixon was said to be very good at this, con­vinc­ing the Rus­sians and the Chi­nese that he was so damn crazy he might just blow the hell out of them. But this is a dif­fer­ent time and shouldn’t the Amer­i­can peo­ple be kinda, you know, informed every once in a while? See­ing as we’re a democ­racy ‘n’ stuff.
Or it may be that Bush keeps rais­ing the hur­dles for Sad­dam so that the dic­ta­tor is bound to fail. Open up the coun­try to weapon inspec­tors? Got it. Release some pris­on­ers? Yup. Now, I don’t want to feel sym­pa­thetic for Sad­dam Husein. I don’t want to think, “Poor guy, he can’t win for los­ing,” but Bush’s drum­beat of war booms steadily, and the pol­icy toward Iraq shows the same inflex­i­bil­ity and dou­bletalk that char­ac­ter­ized Bush’s eco­nomic pol­icy (which, accord­ing to The Onion, involves over­throw­ing Sad­dam.)