Stardate 20020819.1446

There are several issues involved here, including what I think are unwarranted assumptions. Probably the most important of those assumptions is voiced by Brent Scowcroft, who Saletan quotes:

We simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation.

Many people, especially internationally, treasure this idea. It comforts them. It permits them to believe that they actually matter.

Influential Europeans hope that if they protest loudly enough, and condemn the US with sufficient vituperation, that America will give up this stupid idea of an attack and stay home. So do many Arab nations, and other nations.

But I've never seen any explanation of just why it was that the US actually required "enthusiastic international cooperation", or indeed any international cooperation for this war. Because; just because.

Because if we don't, then all those chattering voices have to admit to themselves that they don't actually matter at all, that their voices are just background noise.

There are certain nations whose cooperation we require, but they're not the usual suspects. There are four, but only four. We need Qatar and Kuwait, and it would be enormously useful to have Turkey on board.

We also need the UK to at least acquiesce, even if it doesn't get directly involved, because they could conceivably attempt to deny us the use of air bases at Diego Garcia from which we operate heavy bombers. (According to certain bilateral treaties, they're not permitted to do that, but you know how that goes.)

I see no military reason why we require anyone else's cooperation at all, enthusiastic or otherwise. More cooperation would definitely be nice, but it is not necessary. And I see no diplomatic reason why we need that kind of support either.

Ultimately it comes down to this: we have the military ability to fight this war alone, and if we determine to do so, then the rest of the world can't stop us. They then have to choose to either get directly involved on our side or Iraq's side, or stand on the sideline wringing their hands and uselessly demanding that combat stop.

All we require from everyone else is that they not actively aid Iraq against us militarily, and I don't expect much of that because any formal attempt to do so would be an act of war against the US and bring our crosshairs to bear on them afterwards. No matter who it is, they're going to have a lot of explaining to do to us afterwards, and I can't think of any nation who wants to stand in that spotlight.

There may be some smuggling of weapons and spare parts into Iraq from Saudi Arabia or Jordan, and there unquestionably has been and will continue to be such smuggling through Syria. Syria has been routinely violating the sanctions against Iraq for years, and has been the primary source of the spare parts Iraq needs to keep its Soviet-era equipment working. But that alone isn't enough to make it so we can't invade Iraq and win there, and there's no chance of Syrian troops getting actively involved.

By the same token, French troops won't be deploying in Iraq to defend it against an American invasion. Neither will German troops, nor troops from Iran, and the chance of Saudi troops doing that is extremely low. If their governments spend the next few months searching their collective thesaurusi for new and ever more emphatic ways of saying "We disapprove" then it will have exactly no effect, as long as all they do is talk.

The issue of support within the US is entirely different. This war can't be fought unless the voters of America support it, but they do. Polls show very strong support for an attack. There is an extremely vocal minority who are trying to make up for in volume what they lack in numbers who oppose the war, but as long as support by Americans overall remains strong, what the vocal minority thinks also doesn't matter. And there's no sign of that support dropping significantly.

Finally, there's the question of the apparent indecision and debate and confusion and dissent in Congress and within the various parts of the administration itself.

That's an interesting thing. It just seems too good for those who want to believe that the Bush administration is blowing it. All those different leaked plans, all the different timetables, all the claims that the officers in the Pentagon opposed an attack, and so on? It just seems ideal to convince people that this administration is not actually capable of launching an attack because it can't get its act together.

Can you say "disinformation"? I think most of it is a fake. You have to ignore all the razzle-dazzle, including careful leaks to the NYT which can be relied on to make the Bush administration look as bad as possible in its "unbiased" reporting. You have to look at what's actually