The slowing down of the march to war is astoundingly good news. What concerns me (hence the mention of it) is the fact that the arrogance of Blair/Bush is resulting is what may be a split in NATO and the UN Security Council over the US & British insistence that they have a sovereign right to unilaterally wage war, unprovoked, upon a third nation.

Those are some serious divisions along predictably divisive lines (ie the British and Americans against everyone else) in NATO and the UN Security Council. Both those bodies were formed to prevent just this sort of chest beating unilateralist imperialism by these two particularly powerful empires.

Not to mention the historic meaning it has for British and American meddling over trying to control the oil rich resources of the Middle East for the better part of the last century.