The news today in the Iraq-US conflict is a stunner. Iraq, it is announced, will let in United Nations Inspectors in to conduct unlimited inspections, without conditions.

    Some are quick to conclude that Saddam Hussein has backed down. That's the early and perhaps naïve view. The more enlightened view may well have take into account the reality of the unfolding drama in this high stakes game of geopolitics.

    Bush went to the UN last week and made a bold speech in which he called on the UN to live up to its mandate, lest it becomes relevant. What his speech conceals, of course, is Bush's frustration, and perhaps impatience, in having to go to the UN in the first place. But by turning his frustration into a challenge to the world body to deal with Iraq, or the US would, Bush and his war hawks calculated that a UN blessing would legitimize their war on Iraq, which Iraq believes has little to do with weapons of mass destruction, and plenty to do with "regime change".

    Iraq today responded with its own bold stroke to let weapons inspectors in without conditions. This does not seem to me to be backing down. This is more of the nature of a tactical response to seize the moral high ground. In effect, Iraq has de-coupled the "weapons of mass destruction" theory from regime change.

    It helps to bear in mind that Iraq is no dummy when it comes to understanding the tide of world opinion. Iraq accurately calculated, in my view, that world opinion was clearly against a US unilateral response to the crisis. By being forced by world opinion to go to the UN, the United States has quietly eaten some humble pie, as this action clearly went contrary to the wishes of Vice President Cheney, and his boss, Bush. This was as a result of furious infighting among the Bush team. It appears that Powell's diplomatic, multilateral approach won the day, and helped to score one for the moderates in the Republican administration.

    But the bigger winner is, of course Saddam. Unquestionably , he has slowed down the war train, or at the very least, threw a monkey wrench in its tracks.

    So inspectors are headed back to Iraq. What will the US do next? What will the UN do next? Iraq can claim that it responding to the UN, not the US. Iraq has put itself in a morally advantageous position. The inspectors come in, Iraq buys time. Inspectors find something that look suspicious, they debate its relevance; at worst, they are dismantled. Nothing terrible is found and Iraq ends up smelling like a rose. The US ends up looking embarrassed at best.

    Where does that leave the US and its desire and determination for regime change in Iraq? For now, we can only say that this becomes a far more difficult probability, if world opinion has anything to do with this crisis.

    Perhaps this was why Vice president Dick Cheney fought so vociferously to bypass the UN and move straight on to Iraq. World opinion does matter. And this is why we believe that Kofi Annan and the United nations also won, at least in the initial round. This was Annan's shining hour, when he seemed to have lectured Bush before the world body on the virtues of multilaterallism and respect for the rule of law. In the words of UN Secretary General Annan: "I believe that such a response can only succeed if we make full use of multilateral institutions…I also believe that every government that is committed to the rule of law at home must be committed to the rule of law abroad. All states have a clear interest, as well as a clear responsibility, to uphold international law and maintain international order."