It is clear that George Bush has decided to invade Iraq, probably before then end of this year.  Blair will support him. 

Last week the New Yorker published a long piece detailing the atrocities committed by Saddam against his own people.  This week a well-informed piece by Nicholas Lehmann “The Next World Order” lays out the scenario.

“This spring, the Administration will be talking to other countries about the invasion, trying to secure basing and overflight privileges, while Bush builds up a rhetorical case for it by giving speeches about the unacceptability of developing weapons of mass destruction.  A drama involving weapons inspection in Iraq will play itself out over the spring and summer, and will end with the United States declaring that the terms that Saddam offers for the inspections, involving delays and restrictions are unacceptable.  Then, probably in the late summer or early fall, the enormous troop positioning, which will take months will begin.   The administration obviously feels confident that it can effectively parry whatever aggressive actions Saddam take during the troop buildup, and hopes that its moves will destabilize Iraq enough to cause the republican guard, the military key to the country, to turn against Saddam and topple him on its own.  But the chain of events leading inexorably to a full-scale American invasion, if it hasn’t already begun, evidently will begin soon.”

Are Bush and Blair right?  

American is the world’s sole superpower.  It has a duty to defend its own citizens, and it is in everyone’s interest to expand the zone of democracy in the world.  For too long failure to respond to serious challenges has led violent lunatics like Bin Laden to argue that the western democracies can be repeatedly challenged with impunity. 

The list is long.  Somalia, the first World Trade Centre attack and the attempt to assassinate former president Bush in 1993, the Riyadh bombing in 1995, the Khobar bombing in 1996, the Kenyan and Tanzanian embassy bombing’s in 1998, the plot to launch millennium attacks in 1999, and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.  Not to mention Iraqi attacks on the Kurds and failure to allow proper weapons inspections. 

In all these cases the message sent to potential aggressors was “America is morally weak and unwilling to defend its interests.”   Sept 11^th was only the final straw. 

The problems of the Middle East are larger than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  As Lehmann quotes Charles Hill of Yale saying: 

“Every regime of the Arab-Islamic world has proved a failure.”   

None are democratic or have a free press, and poverty is widespread despite their huge oil wealth.  All repress their own citizens, threaten one or more of their neighbours and export terrorism. 

It is time for America to take the lead.  Richard Hass, far from the most hawkish member of Bush’s administration put it like this:

“The goal of US foreign policy should be to persuade the other major powers to sign on to certain key ideas as to how the world should operate: opposition to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, support for free trade, democracy, markets. Integration is about locking them into these policies and then building institutions that lock them in even more.”  

We can go with that.  The first task is to remove Saddam Hussain.  It won’t be easy and will require resolve, but Bush and Blair are correct to set about it.  We should support them.