Paradoxically, the vote came at about the same time the Nobel Peace Prize Committee named a former US President, Jimmy Carter, winner of this year's peace prize for his dedicated efforts to promote peace in several politically troubled and war-ravaged countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. Carter, who was president from 1976 to 1980, was always hailed as a man of peace and a president with high moral standing. But morality and peace do not win votes in a country where the military industrial complex is one of the most powerful lobbies.

Carter was a one-term president who lost to Ronald Reagan, a Republican president who is now the political role model for Bush.

The Carter presidency followed the agonising years of the Vietnam war that shell-shocked a nation which vowed never to send its soldiers to battle except in the defence of its own territorial borders and national interests.

The impending war in the Middle East- like the war in Vietnam - has once again split public opinion in the US. A massive peace rally in New York's sprawling Central Park last Sunday was an indication of the strong opposition to the war.

The New York Times reported "that those old enough to know said that the Central Park rally drew a larger crowd than similar gatherings in the mid-1960s by those who did not want the US to get further involved in Vietnam".

Alluding to the fact that some of the major beneficiaries of the war would be giant oil companies such as Exxon and British Petroleum, one demonstrator carried a sign which read: "Exxonerate" and "BPrepared." The demonstrations and public opinion polls show the wide gulf between mainstream America and the political establishment.

Now that Bush has Congressional authority, the only other thing needed to legitimise a war with Iraq is the blessings of the UN Security Council. But Bush has made it very clear that he is willing to ignore the world body if it refuses to give him the authority he is seeking. With the US Congress out of the way, the focus now shifts to the United Nations.

For over two weeks now, the United States has been holding closed door negotiations with the remaining four veto-wielding members of the Security Council- Britain, France, China and Russia- trying to force a resolution sanctioning a military attack on Iraq. But the negotiations have bogged down primarily because France is insisting on two resolutions: the first one laying down stringent conditions for arms inspections inside Iraq, and a second one authorising the use of military force if and when Iraq refuses to cooperate with UN arms inspectors.

The US is insisting that there should be only one resolution, which will permit Washington to automatically invade Baghdad if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reneges on his pledge to cooperate with UN arms inspectors. Bush says that one of the reasons for the proposed attack is Iraq's defiance of the Security Council and its refusal to implement some 16 UN resolutions, including one demanding the return of all prisoners of war and renouncing involvement with terrorism and terrorist organisations.

But a new study by Stephen Zunes, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, and Middle East editor of Foreign Policy in Focus, shows that countries other than Iraq are currently violating more than 90 Security Council resolutions. "The vast majority of these resolutions are being violated by allies of the United States that receive US military, economic and diplomatic support. Indeed, the US has effectively blocked the UN Security Council from enforcing these resolutions against its allies," he said last week.

According to a list compiled by Zunes, Israel is in defiance of 31 Security Council resolutions (and more than 70, if General Assembly resolutions are included), Turkey has refused to implement 23 and Morocco 18. All three countries have received billions of dollars in American military and economic aid over the last two decades.

Still, can the United Nations legitimately authorise the use of military force against a country that violates or defies Security Council resolutions? John Burroughs of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy says that many countries have defied UN and Security Council resolutions under very similar circumstances. But the United Nations has not used force against them.

South Africa resisted UN condemnation of apartheid over decades. India and Pakistan have failed to comply with a recent Security Council resolution demanding that they end their nuclear weapons programmes.

For decades, Burroughs said, India has ignored a Security Council resolution calling for a UN-supervised plebiscite in the disputed territory of Kashmir. And Israel has been one of the worst offenders- and a serial violator of Security Council resolutions.

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