Leading Article: Bush's unholy war

YOU HAVE suffered a humiliating military defeat, losing a large portion of your army. You have lost full control of about half your country. Your people are short of food, your commercial aircraft are grounded and exports of your main product, oil, are severely restricted. What do you do? You follow the example of most beleaguered leaders - and particularly beleaguered dictators - and attempt to shore up your precarious hold on power by creating some threat of foreign aggression. Then, once more, you can present yourself as the strong man, the protector of your nation's integrity, calling on your people to unite in a holy war.

Since the mind of Saddam Hussein is inscrutable, we cannot be sure that any such calculations have guided his actions over the past month. But President Bush and his allies should consider the possibility that last week's bombing raid will have strengthened, not weakened, the Iraqi dictator. American officials called it a 'spanking' which is a quaint and distasteful description. But it is also a significant one: spanking is administered, usually in the heat of the moment, when an exasperated parent is provoked by a small child. Modern child-care theory suggests that it does not work. The child is trying to draw attention to itself and will continue to provoke. Brothers and sisters, far from applauding parental action, may close ranks in sympathy, even admiration.

The muddled American justification for the raid - 'a pattern of violations' - certainly suggests a parent that ought to pause for reflection. Incursions into the demilitarised zone between Iraq and Kuwait were incursions into what, until last Friday, was still technically Iraqi territory. The Iraqis had a legal right to remove their property, though they seem to have done so without minding their manners. Again, it is far from clear that the deployment of anti-aircraft missiles in no-fly zones was illegal, for the simple reason that the zones themselves have no legal basis. The Iraqi refusal to guarantee the safety of United Nations flights carrying weapons inspectors is the only clear-cut argument for military intervention. It is a potential threat to the UN's capacity to enforce the terms of the Gulf war ceasefire. In this sense, a second raid, threatened on precisely this issue, would be more justified than the first.

But America, Britain and France should still consider the longer view. After the Gulf war, they hoped that the Iraqi armed forces would overthrow Saddam. A swift exit is what normally happens to defeated dictators. It happened to General Galtieri in Argentina after the Falklands war; the Western allies should ask themselves why Saddam has not gone the same way.

They should also ask how their actions look to the rest of the world. Saddam is an odious tyrant and it may be argued that, regardless of legal niceties, more, not less, should be done to protect his internal victims. But the planet is full of odious tyrants who are ignored because they are no threat to anyone outside their borders. Saddam, with his battered economy, his defeated military and his obsolescent missiles, is hardly an immediate, or even medium-term, threat to international peace. To be sure, he has flouted UN resolutions. But why should he be punished while Israel gets away with flouting Resolution 799, demanding that the expelled Palestinians, still in no man's land between Israel and Lebanon, be allowed to return home? Why does the Indian government get away with ignoring the UN's calls for a referendum in Kashmir? Why has enforcement of a no-fly zone in Iraq been more urgent than enforcement of one in Bosnia?

The real danger of the American bombing raids is that, far from strengthening the UN's authority, they may ultimately undermine it. Once the world sees the UN purely as a tool of Western interests its effectiveness in any new world order will be destroyed. It is coming perilously close to being identified with Western hypocrisy and double standards. Saddam's defeat two years ago was the greatest triumph in history for international authority; the priority is to retain that authority so that it can deal equally effectively with future aggressors.