War between Saddam and the civilized world was inevitable the day the inspectors got kicked out several years ago, probably even sooner once we realized that Saddam was not going to try to abide by the cease-fire agreements he signed when we, probably mistakenly, let him go last time. The fact that the U.S. is the only coalition member willing to do the job isn't our fault. Last time Israel saved everyone's bacon--including ours--by bombing the Iraqi reactors, and got thoroughly reamed for it in thanks.

Saddam is not a rational person, and cannot be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction. If he doesn't use them, he'll see that they get into the hands of people who will. You might reply that there are other nations, like North Korea, that may fall into this category. Maybe so, but one at a time.

No one is going to convince the Left that this is the right thing to do, and I don't think anyone is trying any more. But reasonable people can see that we have gone a lot farther out of our way on this than we had to, getting U.N. resolutions and sending in inspectors.

Would you have been happier if Bush had stood up and said, "screw the U.N., they don't have anything to say about this since we're the ones who have to do the dirty work ourselves anyway." Don't think so, but it would have been honest.