The Bush administration has deliberately created a crisis out of thin air. I'm 
not sure why. But here's my take:

Iraq represents no greater threat to the U.S. than it did 5 years ago. It has 
no weapons of mass destruction that it did not already have 5 years ago, it is 
supporting no significant terrorist activity that it was not supporting 5 years 
ago. This is not to deny that Saddam Hussein is a bad person with some power who 
wishes ill of the U.S. But this was all true 5 years ago when everyone agrees we 
had no compelling reason to go to war.

So what has changed? The Bush administration has been saying for 9 months now 
that it will produce evidence that Iraq is not just an enemy, but an immediate 
threat. To date, no such evidence has been forthcoming. Why? Because the evidence 
doesn't exist.

Now, I don't want to portray the French and Russians as the good guys. Under current 
arrangements they are doing a modest but healthy oil trade business with Iraq, all of 
it just barely within the letter of agreed UN sanctions. They don't want that 
balance of trade to be upset, and so they'll argue to the bitter end against 
anything that changes the status quo. But the fact that they have selfish motives 
doesn't make them wrong.

Few nations have expressed support for a U.S.-backed war, and those that have 
are either being strong-armed by the Bush administration (Pakistan), or bravely
going against the overwhelming popular opinion within the country (England). The
Arab world, in particular, would respond with understandable outrage; not the
smartest diplomatic move we could make in a post-9/11 world.

Should we have a vigorous inspection regime? Of course. And the Bush administration
has done a good thing in getting inspections back on track. But there are so 
many shades of grey between "no inspections" and "total war". Inspections could
be more aggressive, could even be backed by military force: "shut down and 
dismantle this installation now, or we'll have bombers here to do it for you". 
That kind of thing. We haven't tried any of those more assertive steps yet. To
jump straight to war would be ludicrous.

What's baffling is the motivation of the Bush administration. We don't -- and
shouldn't -- want democracy in Iraq. A democratic Iraq might elect
a fundamentalist theocratic leadership to replace the current secular regime.
We don't want that. A democratic Iraq would almost surely face a serious 
separatist movement from the Kurds, and we don't want that either. 
This isn't about the war on terror either. Connections between Iraq and Al
Qaida are tenuous at best. Remember, Iraq is a secular regime, which is 
anathema to Al Qaida's fundamentalist philosophy. This isn't about protecting
the region from Iraqi aggression either. There has been 0 threat of that for
years, and nothing's changed.

So what is Bush's motivation? That's the 60 billion dollar question. Without
an answer to that, it's impossible to see how war might make sense. As for
any justification officially provided so far? I'm not buying it.