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In fact, there were several alternatives to preemptive war against Iraq. One could contend, as the realists did, that the international sanctions adequately contained the Baathist regime. Considering the host of illicit weapons programs recently uncovered in Iraq, as well as last week's confirmation by Britain's Butler report that Saddam had the "strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programs, including if possible its nuclear weapons program," that seems to me like wishful thinking. As well, it ignores the very real likelihood that these sanctions where headed for an imminent collapse, thanks to assiduous lobbying by Baathist proxies in France and Russia.

One could also take a cue from the isolationist Right, reprising John Adams's admonition admonition against going out "in search of monsters to destroy," while insisting that Iraq was better left to its own devices. There are two powerful arguments against this view: First, it seriously misunderstands the obligations, both voluntary and involuntary, of the world's solitary superpower. Second, it ignores the fact that prewar Iraq was becoming a homestead for Islamist terrorists, while the increasingly disenfranchised Iraqi Shiite majority and Kurdish minority made civil war a dangerous probability. Say this for the isolationists though: they are advancing a solution; a stupendously irresponsible one, to my mind, but a solution nonetheless.

The Times' editorialists can't muster even this much. This is unfortunate. By offering little more than reflexive objections to the preemptive war against Iraq, the Times effectively writes itself out of the most important debates of our times. In the process, the paper does itself, and its readers, no service.

topics:
Islam, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, NATO, Nuclear Weapons, Oil