That is pretty much it for the United Nations - all over, finished, bye-bye. Whatever happens now, whether there is a second resolution that does or does not get a Security Council majority, the game is up. The UN has been revealed to be not a talking shop, as its dismissive critics have always claimed, but a diplomatic souk in which bribery, vanity and manipulation are the currencies. Can anyone claim to have been edified by the pantomime of the past few days, with the foreign ministers of the great nations flying around Africa with metaphorical suitcases full of money...