Why delaying war is the best option

WE are into the endgame in dealing with Iraq. There are basically four possible outcomes. The best result - Outcome One - is for Saddam Hussein to co-operate in full disarmament. But it is hard to believe that his slow striptease will ever lay bare everything he has hidden. Given that, the next best - Outcome Two - miserable though it is, is for the Security Council to pass a fresh resolution effectively authorising Saddam's removal. There is no reason to despair of this outcome. But it is plainly on a knife-edge.

In Outcome Three the US goes to war without a new resolution. Outcome Four, however, accepts that without fresh UN authority there can be no invasion, or not for a long time to come. The solid central reason for action remains that we cannot let Saddam go on getting away with ignoring the direct disarmament bargain with the UN which lightened his defeat in the 1991 war.

But it would be bizarre to put right that wrong by action which itself flouted the UN, as Outcome Three would. Last November's Security Council Resolution 1441 cannot reasonably be taken as giving the US the right to define and implement the "serious consequences" it mentioned if the Council had more recently refused to endorse that. To go ahead with invasion in such circumstances would do immense long-term harm to UN authority. We know that the Security Council system is imperfect, but it has held the field, and notched up important successes, for over half a century.

Mr Bush may well regard that as a pity but not much more than that. Mr Blair, however, has to recognise that it would be a calamity. Outcome Three would also deepen the difficulties of post- war tasks, because the invasion would lack political and moral legitimacy.

Outcome Four would throw responsibility back where it belongs - upon the UN itself. Saddam would probably claim victory, and Mr Bush would regard it with anger.

He might well dismiss it as out of the question, unless Mr Blair were to shoulder - as he ought - the enormous political burden of declaring that Britain would not go along with Outcome Three. But there would still be other options for building a cage around Saddam, such as insisting on a permanent UN monitoring mission, and passing unqualified Security Council undertakings to prevent by force any attempt at acquiring nuclear weapons. All this is nowhere near ideal - the UN would still be damaged, and the underpinning threat of eventual force would remain necessary. But it would not be valueless. The drawbacks of Outcome Four are obvious. But it is both morally and, for the international system, less bad than Outcome Three.

Of course, Mr Bush would not endorse this and Mr Blair's display of determination to override dissent at home suggests that neither would he. But he must at least recognise that Outcome Two is so vastly better than either Three or Four as to deserve exceptional diplomatic effort and flexibility.

President Chirac's grandstanding has got France into a very exposed situation. He must know that if his campaigning or his veto drive us all into either Outcome Three or Outcome Four, France herself will be one of the biggest long-term losers. But he needs help to climb down, and the best help will be to let him claim that at least he won a bit more time. If waiting a few extra weeks beyond mid-March makes it possible for France to come aboard Outcome Two without losing too much face, that will be a price amply worth paying.

Sir Michael Quinlan is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College, London

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