"I'm left with the conclusion that we will only get such a consensus in favor of pre-emption after the destruction of a major Western city, or a chemical or biological catastrophe."

And that's the situation and outcome the Bush crew is trying to change.

The same thing happened in the period just before WWII. Churchill was well aware of what was pending, and sounded the alarm every way he could. But he was universally shunned and even mocked for taking the position of being willing to acknowledge and respond to those obvious, if unpleasant, realities. The result was that no serious attempt was made to contain Germany until it was far too late. That's almost certainly what is happening now, although the enemy in this case is not ultimately a specific country, but rather the fact that any madman in charge of a country who wants to can create weapons of mass destruction. And those weapons can subsequently get into the hands of those who would like to smuggle them into a major city. That fact means we have to draw the line somewhere, so that such proliferation doesn't remain unchecked forever. Bush wants to draw the line with Iraq. That seems to be a reasonable place to start.

Doves who say the outcome of an invasion of Iraq is unforseeable and dangerous to the stability of the middle east (or world) are completely correct. The problem is that the result of not drawing a line in the sand is forseeable if you are willing to face unpleasant realities. And that outcome, which the doves in this debate seem to be completely unwilling to even acknowledge, is the one Sullivan points to in the quote above.
10:36:20 AM    

An intelligent suggestion. Friedman is right that in rebuilding Iraq and maintaining stability in the region, it is important to have the world on our side.

But there's a risk in the approach: what if Saddam does meet the benchmarks? Beware of what you ask for -- you just may get it.

The problem is that after those benchmarks are met under intense pressure from a united world, and that pressure is subsequently removed since it can't go on forever, there is nothing to stop Saddam from rearming or any particular reason to think he wouldn't do so.

The only way it could work for the long run would be if the world really is committed to the idea that at the first evidence that Hussein is rearming, we will go through the same process again -- a list of demands followed by inspections and the movement of hundreds of thousands of troops to Iraq's borders if the demands aren't quickly met.

If, and only if, the world is truly commited to that strategy, it does seem like it could work -- and even provide a model for how to deal with other rogue states. At minimum it seems that there would have to be a Security Council resolution stating that commitment on the part of the world, guiding future Security Council actions (not that some countries aren't completely ignoring resolution 1441). Because if Saddam believes that the world would not, or may not, unite in the same way again, he would have little incentive to stay disarmed. The whole approach depends on how strongly the world makes it clear that any rearmament will inevitably and quickly lead to the same threat of invasion that Saddam is facing now.

The problem with the NY Times piece I discussed earlier, and with the French position, is that they do nothing to make threat of force believable. The Blair approach would -- we would actually attack if Saddam didn't go to great public lengths to toe the line. That's very different from the French position, which does not seem to involve any real threat of force now or in the future. The Times equivocates, but the no-real-threat-of-force reading is consistent with the aforementioned op-ed piece.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not an expert in politics, just someone trained in a respect for logic, and who is trying to understand the situation. If anyone sees a logical flaw in the above, please let me know, and if that counterargument makes sense to me, I'll post it here.
10:08:05 AM