Editorial: And the truth is likely to be unpalatable

Today is indeed, as the United States President puts it, "a moment of truth for the world". He has given Saddam Hussein just a few more hours to comply with the demands of the United Nations Security Council. And he has given the Security Council just hours to agree to the military action he proposes to launch anyway. This is a fateful day for the way the world will be ordered. Today the US Government might by its actions declare that it does not operate by the conventions of international consensus, nor finally does it have much regard for the views even of Western democracies in which feeling is running strongly that this war is unwarranted and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Democracies do not go to war lightly. Even generations that have never known warfare sense its terror for those sent to fight and the brutality it breeds. Yet most people will favour military force when the cause clearly requires it. When the cause is clear there is no need for world leaders to spend a full year trying to convince the world that someone presents a real and urgent threat to international security.

The case is simply not convincing. There are Third World countries with worse weapons that Iraq supposedly retains. Crucially, George W. Bush and Tony Blair have utterly failed to provide conclusive evidence that the secular Iraqi regime has supplied the means of mass destruction to extreme Islamic revolutionary terrorists.

This is a moment of truth for the world because it is the first test of Mr Bush's doctrine of "pre-emption". After the terrorism of 2001 and the removal of the Taleban from power in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration declared that the US would no longer tolerate conditions anywhere in the world that could give rise to a threat to its safety. It reserved the right to intervene in "failed" states and to remove "rogue regimes" wherever it decided American security could be threatened.

The doctrine of "pre-emption" does not require a demonstrable threat, merely that the US believes there is one. There is no proof required, no provision for discussion with the accused country, no deference to any sort of world body. Mr Bush means to be prosecutor, judge and executioner in his own right. He would, of course, appreciate the support of other countries but he has made it clear he does not need it and, in the end, he says will do what he thinks necessary.

It is one thing to say it, another to do it. The Security Council should not give in to his warnings of "irrelevance". It cannot stop him doing what he will and it should dare him to go ahead. The US does care what other countries think. It matters to most Americans that their President does not act alone. The UN Secretary-General has warned that the US would be acting outside international law - behaviour the Bush Administration will not easily live down.

The world is well served by a combination of US resolve and UN restraint. There have been occasions, notably before the 1991 Gulf War, when the UN needed some resolute leadership from the United States before it sanctioned military action. Then, as now, it was evident the US would have acted anyway. But that is where the comparison ends.

In 1991 Iraq had just committed an act of aggression that demanded an international response. The only debate was whether war was necessary or whether sanctions might be sufficient. Time has proved the US was correct on that occasion. This time it is not. Mr Bush has foolishly put himself and his forces into a position from which they cannot easily back down. He will go ahead. The best the UN can do is withhold its approval and hope that next time wiser counsels in Washington will prevail.

Herald Feature: Iraq