Whether the United Nations likes it or not, America's patience is exhausted

Even if the French and Russians do use a veto, it will not stop the US and its allies invading Iraq to topple the regime

The "brutal heat" of the Iraqi desert, like its first cousin the "bitter winter" of Afghanistan, is about to prove less of a military obstacle than the armchair generals have been predicting. Across the Kuwaiti borderlands the coalition troops are pulling out their summer fatigues and slapping on the suntan lotion. Those urban warfare training scenarios are being extended. War is still a little way down the road for now. Not a long way but far enough to give Hans Blix, Mohamed al-Baradei and their inspectors several more weeks to poke around in Iraq. The report by the chief weapons inspectors to the Security Council in New York yesterday was was neither smoking gun nor starting gun.

What it confirmed was what we already knew but Mr Blix should be praised for achieving what nobody else in this sorry mess has done: giving us the facts, just the facts. The American right has tried to portray Mr Blix and his inspectors as irrelevant, a waste of time, but the rest of us should recognise a good man when we see one. Rather than sit back and accept that he is trapped between irreconcilable forces and ambitions, Mr Blix has become the people's anorak – and I mean that in the best possible sense.

While George Bush speaks in Florida of smoking them out "one by one" and Baghdad promises death to the invaders, Hans Blix keeps faith with the language of technology and science. When he does offer a conclusion, it is all the more devastating for his refusal to indulge in hype. Implicit in his declaration yesterday was a request for more time for his inspectors.

But would another fortnight of inspections make any real difference? It's hard to think they would. They will give some relief to the principal protagonists. For only one man is praying harder than President Saddam Hussein for a slowing of the inexorable progress towards war in Iraq.

General Tommy Franks, head of the US Southern Command and the officer who will lead the coalition forces into battle, knows his army is still not ready. The second front in Turkey is still in the earliest days of being assembled. Troops from the 101st Airborne have not deployed there yet and neither have the British paratroops who would be expected to seize and protect the Iraqi oilfields.

The armour for the Desert Rats is still on its way to the Gulf and there are continued mutterings from senior army officers about the lack of "clarity" in deployments and timetables. By any reasonable reckoning the coalition forces will not be ready to launch a ground attack before the middle of March. Throw in an extra week for final preparations and you are talking about an assault somewhere around 20 March.

Through all of this the cannier minds – among them Jacques Chiraq, Vladimir Putin and the military planners in the Pentagon – have realised that there is time for more argument before the troops are ready and a moment of final choice must be confronted. Surely, it might be asked, that critical moment was reached when the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441? At the very least, did not the French and the Russians, with their long experience of dealing with Iraq, understand the likely progress of events from that point onwards? There would be some co-operation but not enough to satisfy America or Britain or possibly Mr Blix. And the logical consequence of that failure would be massive US pressure for war.

Knowing this, why would they have allowed themselves to sign up to 1441 in the first place? Perhaps it is because both France and Russia have always known they would ultimately support, or at the very least not veto, military action against Iraq. Both Putin and Chirac know that American economic and military domination will last beyond their lifetimes, and they understand well that denying a second resolution would cost their countries dearly.

If the purpose of their opposition is to make a bold stand against the American superpower and hope to form an alternative power bloc based on Europe and Russia, they may consider the price worth paying. If, however, their desire is to protect their immediate national interests, I would bet they don't stand in the way of a second resolution. I cannot see Vladimir Putin, who is conducting his own war of spectacular brutality against civilians in Chechnya, sacrificing his relationship with the Americans for the sake of Iraq.

Of course the argument is futile as far as the endgame is concerned. Even if the French and Russians do use a veto it will not stop the US and its allies invading Iraq and fighting to topple the regime. It will inflict potentially irreparable damage on the UN and Nato and the EU, but the war will happen. Getting rid of the Iraqi leader is the war aim because Mr Bush and Mr Blair have always believed that with Saddam Hussein in power there will be no such thing as a safe Iraq.

Overthrowing the president of Iraq by invasion or through a coup has been their intention for at least 18 months. The public has known this too and has remained unconvinced by attempts to persuade it otherwise. A large part of the anti-war sentiment has stemmed from a conviction that the politicians have not only failed to make the case for war, but also have not told the truth about its ultimate aim.

I didn't appreciate the scale and depth of opposition to the war until a few weeks back. Certainly I'd heard plenty of people in London railing against George Bush. But you expect it in the cities. Then I went to Buckinghamshire to give a talk about journalism to some sixth-formers. This was pretty solid Tory territory and an area where support for the armed forces was a given. But I didn't meet one person who thought the war was a good idea. If those folks weren't convinced, who would be?

The moment for making a case in advance has slipped away, such is the momentum of the anti-war movement. The best Mr Blair can hope for now is a second resolution that will not explicitly authorise force but which won't rule it out either. If the French and Russians vote in favour, expect British public opinion to move closer to a 50-50 split. If they do not – either by abstaining or using a veto – then British forces will go to war with a substantial majority of the public actively opposed.

Could and would Mr Blair go ahead in such circumstances? The answer to both questions is yes. But nobody will pray harder than they that the Iraqis have hidden tons of chemical and biological weapons in the desert. As each day passes Mr Blair will come to depend on retrospective justification.

A smart alec friend of mine suggests that if all else fails Mr Blair should utilise the skills of some disgraced members of the Met or the West Midlands Crime Squad to plant the necessary evidence in Iraq. He spoke in jest but I couldn't laugh. This isn't a funny moment. We are so bogged down in the minutae of the arguments about Iraq that the big picture – the shifting of tectonic plates across the Middle East – is obscured. War is coming. It is what might wait for us afterwards that scares me.

The writer is a BBC Special Correspondent