Powell in the Sandbox: If the press has any sense of fairness, this will be played as a huge win for Foggy Bottom -- specifically for Colin Powell and John Negroponte:

The United States will get unanimous support for its new resolution on Iraq after Syria decided to join Germany, France and Russia in backing the measure aimed at attracting more troops and money to the war battered-country, a U.N. diplomat said Thursday.

A couple of weeks ago we were gunning for a French abstention, at best. The media, and not incidentally the Democrats, have been howling for better diplomacy, more UN involvement. Well, now that State has shown that it can play nicely with others, how about a pat on the back from the NYT editorial page?

I still don't see what a UN resolution accomplishes, in reality. If nothing else, Bush has retroactively zapped a criticism of his administration's diplomatic policy by showing it can go back to the sandbox and make friends. But it changes little on the ground.