A war with Iraq has become more likely in the past week. Thursday's discovery of undeclared poison gas shells was insufficient to trigger war alone. But here was the first concrete, and predictable, confirmation that Iraq's co-operation with Hans Blix's UN weapons inspectors has been less than complete. And Saddam Hussein's defiant speech on Friday even disappointed those who still hope that the Iraqi leader might choose comfortable exile in Libya or Belarus.
One thing which has been stressed too little in recent weeks is that it is Iraq's choices that have brought war closer. The debate in Britain and Europe continues to focus largely on what America is doing and why. Too often, it is overlooked that it is Iraq which remains, at the eleventh hour, in defiance of the will of its region and the wider world. That will is still to find a sensible resolution to the current crisis without war. The coercive diplomacy that could yet lead to Saddam's disarmament or his disposal by his own side must be pursued. Indeed, the military build-up remains the best strategy for seeking to disarm him, short of war. Yet he still shows signs of frustrating the demands of December's UN resolution. If this continues, few analysts doubt that the United States will seek support for a military attack. It is becoming equally clear that Tony Blair's Britain would participate. Would we be right to do so?
There are good - and bad - arguments for and against military intervention. And there are some on both sides who have relied on weak and intellectually dishonest positions to further their own cause. It devalues debate to belittle Tony Blair as 'President Bush's poodle' - and the crude anti-Americanism which often accompanies this charge also overlooks the nuanced way in which the Prime Minister has sought with some success to influence the approach of his superpower ally. It is similarly unilluminating when detractors dismiss the Bush presidency as 'stupid'. The President, regardless of his own capacities, is surrounded by some brilliant advocates of his visceral beliefs. Equally, however, it does not help casually to conflate any threat from Saddam with that from al-Qaeda, rather than detailing the demonstrable dangers posed by Iraq itself.
The arguments for coercive pressure may well end in war. But they combine two laudable motivations. The first is the nature of Saddam Hussein's regime and the call by many Iraqi exiles and dissidents for him to be overthrown. The appalling 1980s nerve-gasing of the Kurds is well documented. Less widely appreciated is that there are few Iraqi families which have not suffered directly, either in the massacres which crushed the 1991 uprisings, or by the violence routinely deployed by Iraq's secret police. Both Bush and Blair could have emphasised more just how bad Saddam's republic of fear has been for his people and the extent to which ending it is a desirable end in itself.
They could also have stressed more energetically that this dispute is not about oil. For the second motive for displacing Saddam is the danger he poses to the wider world. Western governments must articulate the nature of that potential threat too. The Prime Minister has made the case for the need to deal with Saddam for some years with consistency, though with far less public notice before 11 September 2001. Accused of becoming America's poodle, he, in fact, sticks to a potentially unpopular course because he believes this to be right, and that the threat from Iraqi weapons is real. He does so with courage and clarity.
At the same time, he has thus far managed to insist, and also to persuade the Americans, that we stick to the path of UN endorsement and the framework of international law. This is a considerable achievement.
The world still awaits firm public evidence that Saddam has effective weapons of mass destruction. It is only when their existence is confirmed that the UN will have to decide whether to take substantive military action. And that will be the point at which British public opinion is fully tested.
The Observer has repeatedly argued, and we continue to do so, that any such military action must have multilateral legitimacy. Not only is that right, it is the only way that military action will secure international acceptability. But this does not necessarily mean a unanimous Security Council vote on such action. It might be difficult for some to accept a sole veto from Beijing autocrats, for example, on action which might restore democracy to another nation.
However, if we contemplate war, we should be clear about the dangers. Not only are the lives of British service personnel at risk. (As the last Gulf War proved, even the most clinical military operation does not protect our own soldiers from 'friendly fire'.) The lives of many Iraqi civilians are at risk, too, and must be part of any equation balancing the benefits of an attack, as must the danger of an exodus of refugees from Iraq. Equally, there is a considerable risk that civilians could be targeted in Britain, whether we are part of a UN force or not, either by agents of Saddam or by other terrorists who choose unilaterally to take his side.
Those risks must be set against potentially huge prizes. In London last month, Iraqi opposition groups united around a platform of a federal, democratic state. These people deserve support from those who propound similar values in the West. The overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people would regard Saddam's removal as liberation, pure and simple.
Some fear that, after the current regime, Iraqis can expect nothing better than 'Saddam lite' and a less brutal dictator. But it is easily forgotten that Iraq is a substantially secular country, which, in the period before its first coup in 1958, was making strides towards constitutional monarchy, with a free press, contested elections and the region's best schools and universities. The historic State Department and Foreign Office view, that democracy is not for the Middle East, is faintly prejudiced. But in the words of Bernard Lewis, the scholar of the Muslim world, the example of Turkey proves two things. First, that establishing democracy in the Middle East is very difficult. Second, that it is possible.
The moral and political advantages of holding to the current course of action are overwhelming. Legitimacy is fundamental to the values of Western powers. Wherever possible, we make law, not war, and where war is unavoidable, we observe the law in its conduct. The prospects for any successor Iraqi regime will be much rosier if it is seen to have come into being through a UN mandate derived from a very substantial majority of members, rather than bilateral Anglo-American action.
Those who demanded a multilateral route have responsibilities, too. They must recognise that the much-maligned Bush administration has dutifully pursued a multilateral approach over both Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. The world asked America to work through the UN. The UN and its members must now show that its decisions and resolutions can be effective.
Some will still argue that because the world contains other unpleasant dictators, it would be wrong to get rid of this one. We disagree. The recent past contains several examples of military intervention against sovereign states where the outcome, if not ideal, has certainly been much better in humanitarian terms than what went before: Vietnam's removal of Pol Pot from Cambodia; Nato's Kosovo campaign, with the subsequent indictment of Slobodan Milosevic; the removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan.
War with Iraq may yet not come, but, conscious of the potentially terrifying responsibility resting with the British Government, we find ourselves supporting the current commitment to a possible use of force. That is not because we have not agonised, as have so many of our readers and those who demonstrated across the country yesterday, about what is right. It is because we believe that, if Saddam does not yield, military action may eventually be the least awful necessity for Iraq, for the Middle East and for the world.
The Iraq debate: send us your views
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