Headache upon Headache: Questions of Iraq, nukes, and occupation

There is yet another dilemma inherent to the Iraq problem, one that transcends the Middle East. Here our proof text is about weapons-of- mass-destruction proliferation, and it comes to us courtesy of North Korea.

The North Korean nuclear breakout shows what happens when a rogue state obtains deliverable weapons of mass destruction. It gets the United States to talk of diplomacy rather than of war, even in cases where standard-issue diplomacy-as-management has no chance of solving the problem. We may buy the same North Korean horse for the third time, but that bizarre Stalinist cult masquerading as a government in Pyongyang still will not give up its military ace-in-the-hole, any more than Saddam Hussein will ever agree to and obey an inspection regime that could truly disarm him. The North Korea disaster thus clearly strengthens the case for pre-emption against Iraq, for once Saddam gets the bomb, options will shrink even as dangers rise. In the face of newly magnified risks, U.S. allies will discount American willingness to send conventional forces into harm's way; they will smell the air and adjust their postures, and America's overall political position will face inevitable erosion in consequence. To prevent all this from happening, we must go to war.

But as all dilemmas have two parts, so does this one. While it is too dangerous to let Iraq acquire deliverable nuclear weapons, the very act of preventing it, with the North Korean example in plain sight, will send this untoward message worldwide: If you want to deter the United States from attacking you with irresistible conventional military force, better get a nuke -- get it quick and get it quiet. (Is it a coincidence, after all, that North Korea redoubled its efforts right after the Gulf War, which had taught that same lesson?) And here we come up against the prospective price of acting without genuinely supportive allies. No country can deal with the proliferation problem by itself. To manage the second part of this dilemma, we need our NATO allies -- Russia, Japan, and China if we can get it -- to transform a strong shared interest in staunching WMD proliferation into a great- power concert to prevent it. We cannot achieve that concert if we lack decent respect, as it has been said, for the opinions of mankind.

The multiple dangers of doing too little, too much, or too timidly transform the Iraq debate from one about "whether" to one about "how," and then right back again to one about "whether." In other words, since it is true, as Raymond Aron wrote, that there are ways of conquering that transform victory into defeat, we need to either do this war right or not do it at all. But despite all the risks vested in this project, a counterproductive consequence to a war is not inevitable. To the contrary: A decisive and relatively clean American victory, sans desultory aftermath, would be a great asset in the war against terrorism. In this war, as in any other, there is no substitute for victory. Stunning battlefield results and sound post-war management may generate some additional resentment against the United States, but it will generate caution and respect for American power in far greater reserves.