And I confess to having enormous apprehension, suspicion and frankly just plain fear that we can only control so much. I’m a wordsmith – so are you. So is Obama and Power. We know just how much words mean in a document, as well as how much they don’t mean when someone does not want to abide. (Just think about Karzai and the wretched rules just approved against women’s freedoms – he still insists that the law treats women with dignity – huh!?)

So – I support the push on the four redlines. I do not support squandering an opportunity – I agree with you there.

But maybe what would make me (and others I suspect) feel better is to know or at least be able to trust that Plan B, C, D and E have also been devised and are ready to be implemented in the event that the worst case scenario(s) unfold.

There must be no backtracking from those redline changes, should they all be made. The document must stand up to be asserted – or else where is the value?

Of course, it’s possible that we’ll be ambushed and the bad guys will try and reinsert the language at the conference. And so I definitely support preparations by the various countries who threatened a boycott originally (US, most of the EU, the UK, Australia, etc.) to coordinate a walkout in response, if it comes to that. But I think it would be a massive squandered opportunity (not to mention a very muddled signal) if we managed to get everything we wanted out of the preparatory document and still refused to attend.