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We are in position to virtually dictate who is and isn't on the permanent UNSC. Withdrawal of our funding would kill the UN overnight because nobody else is sucker enough to pay these thieves to stay in business. If we want France off the permanent SC, it's easy. And what would we lose? 95% of UN membership is rabidly anti-American. That would only go up to 99%.

Tony Blair wanted UN approval, it's true. But his policy does not depend on UN approval. He just made that abundantly clear. And he held his majority in Parliament, despite the 122 Labour defectors. There is no way Blair will ever back away from his commitment to make war on islamic terrorism, even if it means becoming an ex-PM sooner than he'd planned.

The intervention in Somalia was disastrous for one reason only: Clinton. And concerning interventions in general, we have no choice. The islamist terrorist network operates through 160 countries and is determined to produce many more 9/11s for us. If we leave them and the states that sponsor them alone, we are dead in the water.

I agree we fund the UN but we don't run it and we can't decide who's on or off the Security Council. I agree with you that, where the UN's concerned, we're chumps and shouldn't put up with their nonsense.

Clearly Blair's sticking with Bush but, when the idea of attacking Iraq first came up, I think Blair felt he'd need to see the effort made.

As far as I'm concerned, the problem with Somalia was we were involved at all. Same goes for Bosnia and Kosovo.

I don't share the enthusiasm for attacking Iraq. Nobody's been able to connect Saddam with AQ and the evidence is, in fact, that they're bitter opponents. North Korea is at least five years ahead of Iraq towards having a nuclear capability, has missiles which can reach Alaska, is working on missiles which can reach the West Coast and sells to anybody with the funds. We'd be far better off addressing the threat from NK than involving ourselves in the Middle East, an area which - except for the region's oil - isn't worth an American sprained ankle.

The "coalition of the willing" should begin to replace the UN as soon as possible. The UN's moral authority was irretrievably ruined with their complicity in the Rwandan genocide.

Iraq has become the UN's "Munich moment"; it is time to move on.