Diplomacy and dollars secure rare unanimity at the UN

If you couldn't quite see whether the hands of all 15 members of the Security Council were in the air when the time came yesterday to vote in favour of the resolution on Iraq, you only had to look at Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, for the answer. Suddenly, his mouth opened and broadened into a wide grin.

It took almost two months to get there but by yesterday there was no doubt that the resolution was going to pass. The United States, with Britain at its side, had done its diplomatic best – at every level of government, from President George Bush, working the telephones, down – to make sure of it. But no one had dared predict what would happen when the ambassadors voted: 15 times, yes.

The significance was obvious to Mr Blix, the ambassadors, their deputies and aides seated behind them, and to all of us looking on, diplomats from around the world, UN officials and watchful reporters. And it was obvious to Kofi Annan, the secretary general. His family, so often splintered, had come together.

The Security Council had achieved unanimity on a decision more grave than any since it authorised the use of force to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait 12 years ago. Thus, in those few seconds of formal voting, it had achieved many things at once. It had rescued its own credibility. It had given maximum authority to Mr Blix, who will seek out Iraq's weapons. And it had talked bluntly to Iraq.

This was not something achieved only in this chamber and the smaller room where all closed-door council negotiations take place. It was the work also of Mr Bush, Tony Blair, France's President, Jacques Chirac, and Russia's President, Vladimir Putin.

Their phone lines will get a rest this weekend. And it was the fruit of another, usually unspoken reality of global diplomacy. Few countries dare defy Uncle Sam when it really wants something.

This is partly about dollars. When Yemen voted against the resolution authorising force in 1990 to oust Iraq's forces from Kuwait, it suffered material punishment. The US cut a $70m (£44m) aid package to Yemen, and Saudi Arabia ejected thousands of Yemeni workers from its territory. And when the Mauritian government recalled its ambassador to the United Nations last weekend, everyone knew why: the envoy, Jagdish Koonjul, had been insufficiently slavish in supporting Washington on the Security Council. Dollars were at stake.

Thanks will have to be given to Damascus. Even as the ambassadors filed into the chamber, with its turquoise flock walls and marble wainscoting, no one knew which way Syria would finally jump.

As Iraq's neighbour and a country on America's blacklist of countries aiding terrorism, it was surely tempted to vote no or, at least, to abstain. But when the president of the council – China's deputy ambassador, Zhang Yishan – asked for a show of hands, Syria's delegate, Fayssal Mekdad, did not hesitate.

As we looked down on the scene – one that will take its place in the history books – it was as if the Security Council, enfeebled for years by public infighting over Iraq, had been injected with steroids. Its shoulders were suddenly broader; this single resolution had made it resolute for a change.

Britain's ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, had not been counting on the Syrian vote. We know this because of the last-minute change he had to make in the text before him, when he spoke, third in line after Mr Annan and the American delegate, John Negroponte. It had the line: "The fact that this resolution has the overwhelming support of council members sends the most powerful signal to Iraq..." He did not say "overwhelming" because, unexpectedly, he found himself able to say "unanimous".

Syria's Mr Mekdad spoke too. Syria, he said, had taken its decision precisely because of the wisdom of international unanimity – unanimity, he was quick to add, that Damascus would like to see on other issues, such as "the Palestinian cause and the Arab-Israeli conflict".

And, like almost every other country – from Mexico to Ireland to Bulgaria – Syria, he said, had voted yes because it had been promised by Washington and London that the resolution was in no way a green light for American military action and contained no "triggers or "automaticity" in regard to waging war.

It was a promise restated by both Mr Negroponte and Sir Jeremy in the chamber. "We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about 'automaticity' and 'hidden triggers'," Sir Jeremy intoned. "There is no 'automaticity' in this resolution."

But both the United States and Britain wanted the chamber – and Iraq, if it didn't already – to know that the prospect of war had not gone. If Iraq failed to reveal its weapons programmes and did not play ball with Mr Blix, the "serious consequences" referred to in the resolution would follow. True, the resolution obliges Washington and London to consult the council in that event. But it contains nothing that would restrain Mr Bush from sending in the bombers if Iraq misbehaves.

Would Syria back deploying American and British troops to oust Saddam Hussein in that scenario? Indeed, would Russia, China and France, all veto-holding states, accept the military option? Maybe that test will not come. But given Iraq's history of deceiving and frustrating inspectors, few would dare bet on that.

The ambassadors - who's who on the Security Council

One spends his summer holiday canoeing in Siberia. Another is a published poet.

The Russian ambassador, Sergei Lavrov and Ireland's envoy, Richard Ryan are two of the 15 ambassadors of the UN Security Council who raised their hands yesterday in possibly the most important vote of their diplomatic careers. The UN is still the place where governments field their top diplomats in the knowledge that the often sleepy corridors can be transformed at a moment's notice into a seething maelstrom where war and peace is decided.

Suspense reached fever pitch yesterday as Syria's tight-lipped deputy ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, the only Arab representative, kept the council on tenterhooks as to whether he would ensure a unanimous vote.

Mr Lavrov is the longest-serving Security Council member. His main sparring partner at present is the American ambassador, John Negroponte, a former US envoy to Honduras at a time of huge human rights violations in the 1980s.

The UK's Sir Jeremy Greenstock, one of the council's "permanent five" and former political director of the Foreign Office, is often cast in the role of bridge between the US and other Security Council members.

The Chinese deputy ambassador, Zhang Yishan, whose country is president of the council for November, waxed lyrical on Thursday night when he predicted "the sunlight of unity" on the resolution.