Wooing the 'army' of the ambivalent

Dominique de Villepin's idea was to flood the country with weapons inspectors. At a minimum, triple the existing number, he said, but more important, give the chief inspector, Hans Blix, whatever quantity of experts he considered necessary to determine, after a month or two at most, just what Saddam Hussein's regime possessed and what its capabilities were.

Iraq was powerless to resist. The UN inspectors were already back in the country for the first time since 1998. Saddam was not bothering to obstruct their work as he had four years previously. The inspection process could have become so obtrusive as to threaten the dictator's hold on power; at a minimum, the French idea would have created a trigger for a genuinely international military operation and postwar aftermath.

That is only one road not taken a year ago in the run-up to an invasion with no significant international support beyond Britain, Israel, and oil-rich Arab "royalty." The consequences of all the not-taken roads amounted to a foolish sacrifice of consensus on the altar of know-it-all unilateralism. The major political consequences of that sacrifice are a deep US ambivalence about the war's merits, a deeper ambivalence bordering on opposition to the costs of long-term occupation, a deep Iraqi ambivalence about that occupation, and a split between the United States and Europe over the occupation's future.

Opinion polls here and abroad attempt to push most of us too crudely into either/or confrontations. The pollsters' questions typically highlight the polar opposites that paper over a more important, widespread ambivalence. A lot of us who were vocally part of that long-ago consensus in 2002 rebel against being pressed to say whether it was right to be "for" or "against" the war or whether it was "worth it" or not.

Attempting to speak on behalf of this army of the ambivalent is by definition difficult, but the essence of this point of view is anything but squishy. It is also pivotal politically in terms both of public opinion about the war and its aftermath and of opinion about President Bush's leadership.

In a new post-9/11 world, we ambivalent citizens thought the time had come to bring the unresolved matter of Iraq to a head, that the continued existence of a monstrous regime in flagrant violation of all the terms of its de facto surrender in 1991 was no longer acceptable in a world in desperate need of basic rules.

At the outset in the summer of 2002, Bush thought enticing the ambivalent aboard was worth the effort. To succeed, he agreed to seek a resolution of support in Congress, and to get an overwhelming, bipartisan vote, he agreed to use that support in the United Nations to get a near-ultimatum from the world. There were arguments and divisions, especially among Democrats, but the resolution giving Bush authority to use military force that he already possessed had at least two-thirds of the country behind it.

That support stayed solid through the passage of a unanimous, tough Security Council resolution, disgust at Iraq's defiance and lies in its submission of a required report on its weapons programs, belief in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN on Iraq's years of rogue state behavior, and prosecution of the brief war itself.

A great deal of Bush's support from the ambivalent was won with assurances that Iraq's unconventional weapons efforts were a grave threat that demanded an early invasion, that the cost would be a few billion at most before oil revenue paid for it all, and that both US troops and Iraqi exiles would be welcomed as liberators.

The reason strong support became deep division was that the assurances were all false. In all the Bush spin and political counterattacks, what remains missing to this moment are honest answers to simple questions: Why did we have to invade Iraq last March? What was so urgent that the invasion and subsequent occupation were essentially unilateral? How could war have been the last resort legitimacy demands?

The irony is that after all this, the army of the ambivalent is still in effect available to Bush -- for the simple reason that there is a recognition that Iraq cannot be abandoned. The key questions going forward are the natural follow-ons to the questions looking backward: Will Iraq's political affairs be guided by the UN or heavy-handedly directed by a US ambassador presiding over a colonial-sized embassy, and will security be guaranteed by a force worthy of the international character that NATO would supply or still essentially an American burden?

By this November, those who have been ambivalent won't be anymore, and the direction they tip is up to Bush, as it has been all along.

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.