Ever since the last Presidential campaign, Bush's wary relationship to his native tongue has been the stuff of easy comedy; his love of being "misunderestimated" a gift not merely to the writers of "Saturday Night Live" but also to Karl Rove's political operation, which had been eager to contrast Candidate Bush's studied homeliness with Candidate Gore, who liked to tell reporters of his fondness for the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. What pork rinds were to the father, malapropisms are to the son— a gesture of cross-cultural solidarity.

On the level of state, however, the President's language, his ability to set out complex matters of policy for the American people, and also for our allies, and even our enemies, matters enormously. At the United Nations General Assembly more than four months ago, Bush, after long delay, opened his case against Saddam Hussein with a pointed litany of Iraq's egregious violations of human rights and international law. With a gravity appropriate to the occasion, Bush surveyed everything from Saddam's genocide in the Kurdish north to his relentless ambition to build nuclear weapons and dominate the region, by employing the same level of terror that keeps his own citizens in a state of constant subjugation.

But since this impressive opening foray the President has been less consistent in furthering, and deepening, his case for the use of force in Iraq. Even as he has dispatched aircraft carriers, fighter planes, and tens of thousands of troops to the region, he routinely dismisses important objections to, and questions about, the buildup to war; mainly, he has indulged in a rhetoric of irritation.

What is most unfortunate about the President's lack of public engagement in the argument for force is that the objections to it are answerable. There are, of course, some who oppose an invasion of Iraq on the ground that, say, peace is better than war, or that the "real issue" is a conspiracy of oil interests, or that the President is an avenging cowboy and all his advisers a posse. Far more seriously, there are questions of why now and why Iraq (and not North Korea or Iran); there are profound concerns about the loss of life (can't we just foment an Army coup?), and about what happens the day after Saddam is arrested, or killed, or lands on Elba. Do we really expect a Jeffersonian legislature to rise from the rubble of Saddam's palaces? Are we prepared for years of rebuilding in Iraq when we already seem to have lost interest in the continuing chaos in Afghanistan?

Saddam's record is unambiguously horrific, but the issue of a military offensive is almost uniquely complex as a matter of timing and strategy. There have been no recent Iraqi invasions of neighboring countries, no recent Biblical mass of refugees, no indisputable evidence of a connection with the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. It is also unlikely that the White House or the United Nations inspection team will present this week what Adlai Stevenson presented to the Security Council during the Cuban missile crisis: irrefutable evidence that an enemy is amassing weapons of mass destruction. Even if the Administration agrees to support a short extension for the U.N. inspectors who are now at work in Iraq—and such a concession might go a long way toward building a larger, more cohesive coalition—this evidence will not come easily, if at all. The Cubans and their Soviet allies might not have been able to hide an enormous military installation from American spy planes forty years ago on a relatively small island, but the Iraqis are highly experienced in the craft of "cheat and retreat," and it is not as difficult to hide centrifuges or gallons of anthrax in a country that is larger than Germany.

As it happens, the most comprehensive and convincing case for the use of force in Iraq has been made by a government intellectual, Kenneth M. Pollack. From 1995 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2001, Pollack served in the Clinton Administration as director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council; before that, he was a military analyst of the Persian Gulf region for the C.I.A. More effectively than Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz or any other of the hawkish big thinkers in the Administration, Pollack, in his book "The Threatening Storm," presents in almost rueful terms the myriad reasons that an aggressive policy toward Iraq now is the least bad of our alternatives. As Bush did at the U.N., Pollack carefully describes the Stalinist character of Saddam's state: the pervasive use of torture to terrorize and subdue the citizenry and insure the loyalty of the Army and the security apparatus; the acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing; the use of chemical weapons on neighbors and his own citizens; the sponsorship of terrorist groups; the refusal to relinquish weapons of mass destruction despite the humanitarian and economic cost the Iraqis pay through international embargo. We are reminded, too, of Saddam's vision of himself as the modern Saladin, the modern Nebuchadnezzar II, who (after massacring the Kurds, invading Kuwait, and attacking the marsh Arabs of the south) vows to "liberate" Jerusalem, vanquish the United States, and rule over a united Arab world. Saddam is not a man of empty promises. His territorial aggression is a matter of record, his nuclear ambitions are clear.

Unlike the President, Pollack dignifies all possible objections and what-ifs with answers. For example, he concedes that North Korea and Iran are, in some ways, even greater and more obvious threats than Iraq, but he carefully shows why the regional politics of northern Asia require a different tack and why Iran, with its more dynamic, grass-roots politics, is far likelier to undergo a homegrown revolution or reform than Iraq, where politics of any kind are not permitted.

The United States has been wrong, politically and morally, about Iraq more than once in the past; Washington has supported Saddam against Iran and overlooked some of his bloodiest adventures. The price of being wrong yet again could be incalculable. History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them.

Saddam's abdication, or a military coup, would be a godsend; his sudden conversion to the wisdom of disarmament almost as good. It is a fine thing to dream. But, assuming such dreams are not realized, a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all.

— David Remnick

Keeping Saddam Hussein in a Box
By JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER and STEPHEN M. WALT
New York Times Feb 2, 2003

The United States faces a clear choice on Iraq: containment or preventive war. President Bush insists that containment has failed and we must prepare for war. In fact, war is not necessary. Containment has worked in the past and can work in the future, even when dealing with Saddam Hussein.

The case for preventive war rests on the claim that Mr. Hussein is a reckless expansionist bent on dominating the Middle East. Indeed, he is often compared to Adolf Hitler, modern history's exemplar of serial aggression. The facts, however, tell a different story.

During the 30 years that Mr. Hussein has dominated Iraq, he has initiated two wars. Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, but only after Iran's revolutionary government tried to assassinate Iraqi officials, conducted repeated border raids and tried to topple Mr. Hussein by fomenting unrest within Iraq. His decision to attack was not reckless, because Iran was isolated and widely seen as militarily weak. The war proved costly, but it ended Iran's regional ambitions and kept Mr. Hussein in power.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 arose from a serious dispute over oil prices and war debts and occurred only after efforts to court Mr. Hussein led the first Bush administration unwittingly to signal that Washington would not oppose an attack. Containment did not fail the first time around — it was never tried.

Thus, Mr. Hussein has gone to war when he was threatened and when he thought he had a window of opportunity. These considerations do not justify Iraq's actions, but they show that Mr. Hussein is hardly a reckless aggressor who cannot be contained. In fact, Iraq has never gone to war in the face of a clear deterrent threat.

But what about the Iraqi regime's weapons of mass destruction? Those who reject containment point to Iraq's past use of chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iran. They also warn that he will eventually get nuclear weapons. According to President Bush, a nuclear arsenal would enable Mr. Hussein to "blackmail the world." And the real nightmare is that he will give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda.

These possibilities sound alarming, but the dangers they pose do not justify war.

Mr. Hussein's use of poison gas was despicable, but it tells us nothing about what he might do against the United States or its allies. He could use chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iranians because they could not retaliate in kind. The United States, by contrast, can retaliate with overwhelming force, including weapons of mass destruction. This is why Mr. Hussein did not use chemical or biological weapons against American forces or Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Nor has he used such weapons since, even though the United States has bombed Iraq repeatedly over the past decade.

The same logic explains why Mr. Hussein cannot blackmail us. Nuclear blackmail works only if the blackmailer's threat might actually be carried out. But if the intended target can retaliate in kind, carrying out the threat causes the blackmailer's own destruction. This is why the Soviet Union, which was far stronger than Iraq and led by men of equal ruthlessness, never tried blackmailing the United States.

Oddly enough, the Bush administration seems to understand that America is not vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. For example, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, has written that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration." Similarly, President Bush declared last week in his State of the Union address that the United States "would not be blackmailed" by North Korea, which administration officials believe has nuclear weapons. If Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal is "unusable" and North Korea's weapons cannot be used for blackmail, why do the president and Ms. Rice favor war?

But isn't the possibility that the Iraqi regime would give weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda reason enough to topple it? No — unless the administration isn't telling us something. Advocates of preventive war have made Herculean efforts to uncover evidence of active cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and senior administration officials have put great pressure on American intelligence agencies to find convincing evidence. But these efforts have borne little fruit, and we should view the latest reports of alleged links with skepticism. No country should weave a case for war with such slender threads.

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A difficult decision on an Iraq war

Count me among those Americans with mixed views on whether war with Iraq is appropriate.

I disagree with those who say President Bush and his supporters have not effectively articulated the case for action. To the
contrary, the arguments in favor of attacking Saddam Hussein are strong. Inaction in the face of Iraq's disregard of the terms
of its 1991 surrender amounts to appeasement, undermines the credibility of the United Nations and would create a
dangerous precedent for other rogue nations.

"Smoking gun" or not, there is little doubt that Hussein covets weapons of mass destruction, and if not for the purpose of
using them, then for what? Baghdad's "shuck and jive" routine has been an affront to meaningful diplomacy, as was the
unwillingness of other nations to abide by the strategy of economic santions for the past decade. And lingering memories of
Sept. 11 remind us that strictly limiting the use of force to retaliatory situations is a policy that can carry a very steep price.

On the other hand, opponents of war also make impressive arguments. Without a U.N. endorsement of military action, the
United States risks alienating important allies. Our focus on Iraq may detract from our effort to root out the direct culprits of
the Sept. 11 attacks. A unilateral move against Iraq could put into motion a domino effect of Islamic fundamentalism in the
Middle East, creating risks to offset any gains achieved by overthrowing Hussein. And while few but the most dedicated
pacifists among us advocate an absolutist position on "retaliatory" versus "preemptive" military action, all are right to ask
whether there is enough evidence of "imminent" threat to justify war right now.

As is often the case in great debates of public policy, neither side makes an argument that logically defeats the other. Rather,
the debate turns on weighing and balancing conflicting values and goals, as well as speculative assumptions about the likely
outcome and consequences of military action. Thus, the expression of righteous indignation or moral superiority by either side
toward the position of the other serves only to lower the substantive quality and civility of our national discourse.

In my heart, I ultimately cannot now lend my voice to the call for war, not because I think it would be immoral, or because I
am afraid of the diplomatic or other consequences. Rather, I cannot in good conscience endorse war under circumstances
where I would be hesitant to take up arms myself or urge my own sons to fight, as is the case here.

However, as long as we have a strong, volunteer military, I will be supporting our fighting men and women without
reservation if and when the action starts, and I will be very grateful for their service. I will mourn the loss of life on either side,
but not give a damn about whatever horrible fate hopefully befalls Hussein. And I suspect that a lot of my fellow Americans
feel the same as I do.

Mitchell Feigenbaum
Radnor

feigen15@comcast.net