President Bush's one-day summit today in the Azores with Britain's Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar should decide whether the United States will push ahead for a U.N. ultimatum to Iraq.

Bush and Prime Ministers Blair and Aznar should make this last try to find a compromise resolution acceptable to the Security Council. But if they conclude they will fall short of the hoped-for eight or nine votes out of 15, they should not force a vote.

Better to take whatever action is deemed necessary against Iraq, with last November's U.N. resolution 1441 still preeminent, than to allow a U.N. rejection to overshadow it.

France, Russia and China, three of the Security Council's five permanent members with veto powers, remain opposed to an ultimatum, along with Germany and Syria. The United States, Britain, Spain and Bulgaria favor it. Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan are undecided. Chile on Friday floated a plan giving Iraq three more weeks and five specific compliance tests.

Meanwhile Iraq has moved forces southward, closer to the Kuwaiti border, where the United States has massed 125,000 troops. The risk of some triggering incident has also grown apace.

President Bush's Middle East peace initiative, announced Friday, sketched out a new "road map" toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also was designed to counter the dominant talk of war with Iraq and provide political cover to Arab rulers and Tony Blair.

The United States should continue to tighten the military chokehold on Iraq, even as it exhausts diplomatic appeals.

Saddam Hussein brushed aside an appeal from Arab nations to disarm or go into exile. There's little wiggle room left for the United States to back off, and if it comes to war, there is no chance that the United States will leave him in power this time. That is the message the Security Council ought to be sending to Iraq.