War can be averted

We are on the final approach to a show-down with Iraq. There are good reasons for hankering after the rustic's road directions: "I wouldn't start from here." The issue need not have been pushed to the top of the international agenda. Saddam was hugely unlikely to attempt another external aggression after his two humiliating failures in distant days when he was stronger and he thought the United States less concerned; he was not behind al Qaeda's 11 September outrages; not even the CIA believes that he would risk giving "weapons of mass destruction" to terrorists. Comparisons with Hitler are an ignorant joke.

He is, nevertheless, intolerably defying the United Nations, in flagrant breach of the bargain that limited his Gulf War defeat in 1991. Something firm has to be done - Mr Blair is entirely right about that.

But we did not have to be straitjacketed into choosing between inaction and the extraordinary step - unique, for the West - of starting from cold a full-scale war. Such a war will certainly succeed sooner or later, in narrow military terms. But at what human, economic and moral cost - and with what repercussions in the long aftermath?

In the circumstances of the Middle East, it will be a massive rock thrown into a deep and dark pool, and we cannot be sure where the ripples will spread or what creatures may be roused from the silt. But we are where we are, where the United States has towed us all. We cannot stop the world and get off; we have to operate amid reality.

Simply to back away now would hand Saddam a triumph, undermine the United Nations and gravely damage the transatlantic relationship, still deeply important to all Europe, whether or not we are happy with President Bush himself. Can Britain do anything but wring its hands as the escalator carries us down?

Perhaps not much; but not quite nothing. The chances of avoiding war look slim, but not zero. Doing whatever we can to exploit them will, moreover, serve another valuable purpose, strengthening the prospect that war, if it does come, is seen as widely as possible to be legitimate, a genuine last resort.

That will matter at home, in support for our own armed forces as they go into danger and stress. It will matter in getting consensus in the United Nations. And it will be some help in moderating resentment among the Iraqi people and around the Middle East (though the greater need there is for serious US engagement to seek Arab/Israeli peace - a demand on which Europe ought to unite).

After Colin Powell's Wednesday statement, on top of Hans Blix's report last week, no open-minded judgment can doubt systematic Iraqi concealment to foil the inspectors, and the inescapable inference that Saddam has much to hide. The key now is whether, in the light of this and the inspectors' imminent visit to Baghdad and the UN report next week, Saddam is at last driven to give real ground.

He probably won't - he may well again be in the mood of obstinate fatalism that we saw on the eve of the Gulf War. But if he does truly shift off his defiance, we must be ready to look at new responses.

Those in Washington - including the President - who hate the idea of even an emasculated Saddam surviving will want to point to anything still held back and proclaim "not good enough".

But even if imperfect, a major climb-down - stopping the evasion, admitting to stocks, accepting their destruction - should point us towards non-military options like imposing a permanent UN monitoring organisation within Iraq, and underpinning this by an unconditional Security Council declaration that any threat, use or transfer of prohibited weapons would lead, without further debate, to the regime's instant removal and prosecution.

Agreed, this looks improbable. What next, then? If Saddam stays obstinate, inspection cannot usefully be prolonged. But that does not justify an impatient rush. It is essential - and Mr Blair, who has a strong hand with Washington if he resolves to play it, must insist on this - to have a second Security Council resolution. France will not ultimately veto action.

Despite the tiresome parade of anti-American independence and apparent alignment with Germany's head-in-sand irresponsibility, France will remain realistic at the crunch.

To go ahead without positive Security Council agreement on a mission whose central justification is to uphold UN authority would be bizarre.

Whatever the formal legalisms about the wording of last
November's resolution - and even that did not give the United States a free hand to define the "serious consequences" of a material breach - political legitimacy would be crippled if the United States did not get, or dared not seek, up-to-date endorsement.

Could anything further be done if Saddam still refuses to help his country and the world out of the mess? One final idea deserves to be weighed. The Security Council could say something like this:

"Saddam's regime has to go soon, one way or another. If necessary, the international community will ensure that by force. But we should prefer that Iraq itself do the job, and we will allow a final (say) two weeks for that.

"If Saddam and his entourage is irreversibly removed and replaced by successors committed to co-operating in the speedy identification and total destruction of his WMD arsenal, we will not attack; we will work with the successors; we will lift sanctions; and we will not conduct any witchhunt against those who have had to work with Saddam."

The chances that such an offer would be taken up are certainly less than 50-50 - but again not zero. And, once more, having made it would enhance the legitimacy with which, in the end, if it comes to that, we have to tread the bitter path to war.

Michael Quinlan is visiting Professor in the Centre of Defence Studies at King's College London.