The Iraqi economy is devastated, the people destitute, the country desperately awaiting reconstruction. Fortunately, Iraq has oil. Perversely, it cannot sell its oil because it is still technically under the U.N. sanctions imposed in 1990 on Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Kuwait and kept in place when he refused to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction. All we need to get suffering Iraqis on the road to recovery is to lift the embargo and let them sell their oil.


Not so fast, says Russia's foreign minister. "This decision cannot be automatic. For the Security Council to take this decision, we need to be certain whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not."


In the history of diplomacy going back to, oh, Babylonian times, it is hard to find a pronouncement as cynical.[...]