Big moment for drama's small players

UN Temporary members of security council hold key to vote.

If, in a few years time, you should find yourself in Conakry, capital of the west African republic of Guinea, and notice that the airport terminal seems unusually luxurious or the road system unexpectedly well-maintained, it might be worth thinking back to the Iraq crisis of 2002 - and wondering.

Guinea is one of 10 countries who find themselves, by fluke, in the crucial position of deciding the fate of any United Nations resolution on Iraq. These are the rotating members of the security council. When the UN does move to the centre of world attention, the focus is on the permanent five: the US, Britain, Russia, China and France, their positions as global powers based on a world view (like much at the UN) established in 1945.

If one of the five uses its veto, then any resolution is killed. But the veto is the bluntest instrument in UN diplomacy. There will be frantic activity over the coming days and weeks between Washington and the sceptics in Moscow, Paris and Beijing to find a resolution that will produce agreement or, at the worst, abstentions.

But that will not be enough. To pass, assuming there are no vetoes, a resolution would have to get nine votes out of the 15 available - the five permanent members plus the 10 temporary members which currently include Guinea as well as Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Singapore and Syria.

By good fortune, with a small slice of skill, that line-up of the temporary members is about as favourable to the US as any selection from the general assembly could possibly be. The countries represent regional blocs, mostly chosen on Buggins' turn. The skill came because one of Africa's representatives should now be Sudan, no friend to American ambitions.

However, the Clinton administration, with a display of diplomatic finesse that might not be so evident these days, successfully manoeuvred to have Sudan sidelined as soft on terrorism and replaced by Mauritius.

Even in normal times, the two-year term on the security council is a big moment for a small country, many of which treat their moment in the sun as an important duty and honour. Suddenly, their diplomats find themselves greeted in the corridor in a less perfunctory function by the big players. Because the security council meets almost every day in private session, their names get remembered.

But the duty matters too. "You can't just make polite noises as you normally might," explained one small-country diplomat. "You can't make pious generalisations. You can't hide. You are in the ring."

It was not easy to discover yesterday what, for instance, Guinea's position on Iraq might be, because the phone in its embassy in Washington appeared to have been disconnected. However, its per capita income is approximately one-thirtieth that of the United States, and Saddam Hussein's intentions are not thought to be top of the list of national priorities.

UN sources say that Guinea and - even more so - the other west African country on the council, Cameroon, have proved generally sympathetic to the US in recent meetings. Bulgaria (which is this month in the chair of the security council and is keen to enter Nato), Colombia (which has its own tangled relationship with the US), Singapore and Norway are also thought likely to support the kind of resolution President Bush would want. In contrast, Syria's vote can probably be written off.

But given the possibility of abstentions from three of the five permanent members, even those mathematics could still leave the balance in the hands of the remaining three members: Ireland (which will give weight to EU opinion), Mauritius (which has proved rather more independent-minded than the US might have anticipated), and Mexico.

Mexican opinion has turned sharply against the Americans in recent months. In an interview published in yesterday's New York Times, Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, forcefully reminded the Bush administration to remember its earlier commitments on immigration reform that would legitimise the position of three million Mexicans working illegally in the US. He insisted that the US focus on terrorism should not be allowed to obscure Mexico's concerns. "I ask myself, is it necessary to choose between the two issues?" he said.

In any case, the exact wording of any resolution is always vital at the UN. Since the drafting process generally takes place in English, that might be thought to give the Anglophone countries an advantage, but it can cause its own problems.

There is still dispute whether Resolution 242, passed 35 years ago, calls on Israel to withdraw from "the territories it conquered" or just "territories it conquered", a profound distinction. It depends on whether you read the English text or the French version, which is equally official.

Who's on the council

Permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States

Temporary members (elected by the general assembly for two-year terms): Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Guinea, Ireland, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Syrian Arab Republic