I think Tim Dunlop already noted the new White House line from Ari Fleischer that Iraqi disarmament is equivalent to regime change. But now the NYT has it from Bush himself. So far, things have gone as I predicted after Bush’s first UN speech, and I’m feeling happier about the Iraq situation than I have done at any time since the “Axis of Evil” speech. The worst-case outcome, a unilateral US war with no clear aims, now seems much less likely. If Saddam disarms, Bush will have scored a major victory without compromising the war on terror. If he refuses, it should be possible to get unified world support for his overthrow. The dangerous case is where Saddam engages in foot-dragging just enough to justify an attack as far as the US is concerned, but not enough for others. This is his past form, but he may well realise that it’s his own neck on the line this time.
A peaceful resolution in Iraq will be a huge benefit to us in hunting down the Bali bombers. We need the full co-operation of the Indonesian government and civil society and this will be much easier to get if we are not engaged in what can be represented (in the terms of praise used by leading warbloggers) as ‘a new imperialism’ or ‘cultural genocide’.

Of course, from the viewpoint of unilateralist warbloggers, the reverse of the above analysis applies. If Saddam complies totally, they don’t get a war at all, and if he is totally defiant they get the ‘wrong’ war, one with UN authority and a multinational coalition that will run the postwar nationbuilding, if not the actual fighting. The optimal outcome from this viewpoint is the one where Saddam promises to comply, then drags his feet.