In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix continued his love affair with Saddam Hussein when he contorted the facts into a heart-shape note for the Butcher of Baghdad. But the real action was taking place behind the scenes — something that will carry on at least through the next week. The lobbying campaign was spearheaded by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met privately with a number of foreign ministers also in attendance for the U.N. Security Council session in New York — with the ultimate goal of breaking the French and German obstruction.

To the surprise of some, Blix’s report was in many ways tamer than the one delivered at the end of January. He did offer up some facts, such as when the European diplomat explained, “Some 1,000 tons of chemical agents were unaccounted for.” But in the next breath, Blix cautioned, “One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist.” Uh-huh. Saddam voluntarily destroyed 1,000 tons of chemical agents, but then forgot to keep any proof that he had done so.

Blix’s bizarre defense of Iraqi obfuscation is part of his mindset to defend Saddam at all costs, says Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign- and defense-policy studies for the American Enterprise Institute: “The truth is that Blix has come to see himself less as a weapons inspector, and more as a human shield — stopping the U.S. from going to war in Iraq.”

Blix’s latest tactical move to buy more time is likely to fail given the intense pressure from U.S. officials. The most substantive impact of Blix’s presentation could be to embolden French and German opposition — and to pave the way for a new U.N. resolution declaring that Saddam has not lived up to the mandates of Resolution 1441. Sometime this week, a U.S.-British resolution could be offered to the Security Council that simply declares that Iraq has not complied with 1441 but wouldn’t explicitly endorse war, according to a senior administration official. The official believes that such a narrowly tailored measure would leave France with little or no political cover to veto it, since no one contends that Iraq has fully lived up to the requirements of Resolution 1441 — including Blix in his Valentine’s Day report.

The Franco-German roadblock preventing U.N. or NATO resolutions backing war may be withering under intense international pressure — and U.S. officials will be doing everything possible to further weaken that alliance until the end of the month, according to a senior administration official. Getting resolutions through either body — something that seems to be a both-or-nothing proposition — does not appear likely at this point, but the official believes that could still happen: “The odds are against it, but the game’s not over yet.”

The cracks in the alliance appear to be growing, and the debacle over Turkey seems to be at the heart of it. Even before the veto of the measure to defend Turkey, France and Germany were beginning to feel diplomatically isolated. Although their veto of aid for Turkey was meant as a proxy for a war resolution, the face value of the move earned France and Germany a new level of international scorn and ridicule — and may have done lasting damage to NATO in the process. “We can’t even begin to estimate the effect on NATO,” says a senior administration official. The backtracking on this very issue, which started with Germany expressing a change-of-heart on Thursday, could be a sign of things to come.

Despite Blix’s love note for Saddam on Friday, the United States will continue the build-up toward war — meaning action in Iraq could happen as soon as next month. Whether France and Germany will decide to join most of the rest of the world in disarming Saddam when the moment of truth arrives is something of a mystery, though U.S. officials would like to see the most united front possible. Everything that has happened to this point could be an elaborate game, comments Pletka: “The French and the Germans are running alongside the train, trying to figure out when the latest possible moment they can get on board. If they don’t get in line soon, they might miss the train altogether.”

— Joel Mowbray (joel@nationalreview.com) is a reporter for National Review.