When It Comes to Disarming Hussein, Even the Hawks Are Split

One line of division over the prospect of war with Iraq was vividly displayed on the streets of America and Europe nine days ago: the chasm between those who support the use of force against Saddam Hussein and those who marched to oppose it.

But another critical division has emerged over the war. This one is between two distinct groups of those supporting force. On one side are those who consider international cooperation the key to confronting new threats to global security. On the other are those who see Iraq as the opportunity to prove that the surest way to a safer world is for America to lead through assertive action, even if that increases friction with allies in the near term.

Over time, this argument over how to make war against Iraq may have more lasting implications than the debate over whether to invade. The odds are high that President Bush will make the question of whether to use force moot sometime in the next few weeks by ordering an attack. But the dispute over how to pursue war will have implications for years. It will color America's relations with its traditional allies in Europe long after the shooting stops in Baghdad. And it is likely to emerge as the central foreign policy debate in the 2004 presidential election.

These contending views are expressed in the purest form by two sets of foreign policy analysts. The go-it-alone case is made most aggressively by neo-conservative thinkers inside and outside of the Bush administration, such as Republican strategist William Kristol and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. Bush doesn't accept all their arguments, but his approach to Iraq, and the world more broadly, bears their clear imprint.

The bring-others-along argument is expressed most passionately by a group that writer Harold Meyerson, in American Prospect magazine, recently dubbed "tough doves" -- center-left Democrats such as Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO supreme allied commander. The dwindling band of Republican foreign policy moderates, such as Sen. Charles Hagel of Nebraska, holds similar views. The unquestioned international leader of this camp is British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Both sides agree Hussein must be disarmed. Both are willing to use force to do so. But the two camps are seeking to establish in Iraq very different precedents for how the world deals with new threats in the age of global terrorism.