This has been one of those weekends that you look back upon as having been monumental once the bombs start dropping.

First, you have Bush, Blair, et al., on a remote island off of Portugal meeting to discuss what to do with the UN. They come up with the idea that Monday is the last chance to get Saddam to disarm:

President Bush says Monday’s deadline for Iraq to account for its banned weapons is the final day for the U.N. Security Council to act on disarming Iraq.

President Bush, following a summit in the Azores with the leaders of Britain, Spain and Portugal, says Monday’s deadline for Iraq to account for its banned weapons is what he calls “a moment of truth for the world”.

Mr. Bush told a press conference following the summit that Monday’s events will determine whether diplomacy can work. He repeated that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein can leave the country if he chooses, but added that he will disarm or be disarmed by force.

So now it looks like the only two possible outcomes are (1) Saddam can go into exile, leaving Iraq to disarm itself under the supervision of the UN [I call this the fairy tale option.] or (2) Saddam continues to defy the UN as he has done for much of the last 12 years and the US and our allies begin a campaign the likes of which the world has never seen. Honestly, the war will lost a matter of days and the American casualties will be in the dozens. Most Iraqi soldiers will surrender or turn on Saddam, and those that do not will die in Baghdad. Either way, the story of the late summer and fall will be about the new Iraqi Congress and their efforts to bring democracy to their nation.

In other news … we call this a tip-off: U.S. Orders Diplomats Out of Kuwait, Syria, Israel … Saddam divides up the country into four military zones, for easier carving by America and her allies. How nice of him to make it simple like this for us!