The case against war.

• Position: War with Iraq - Editorial

As the United States geared up to bomb Iraq, the war talk trampled logic and morality.

Amid all the bellicose rhetoric in Congress and in the press, the American people barely heard a single argument opposing the war, even though the case for war is so weak.

First, this is a U.N. issue, not a U.S. issue, since Saddam Hussein is disobeying U.N. sanctions. But no one designated the United States to be the U.N. enforcer. In fact, China, France, and Russia opposed a U.S. attack. So if the U.N. Security Council doesn't favor military action, then what right does the United States have to wage war against Iraq?

Second, Saddam Hussein does not pose a military threat to the United States. He does not have missiles that can reach Washington, even if he possesses chemical or biological weapons. And he is much less of a threat today than he was during the Gulf War. The U.N. inspectors have incapacitated his nuclear program and downgraded his chemical and biological programs, and his much-vaunted Republican Guard did not pose a serious challenge back in 1991. Even George Tenet, the head of the CIA, acknowledges that Iraq's military has deteriorated.

If ever there is a legitimate reason for war, it certainly does not exist in this case. Iraq is not poised to attack the United States or its citizens. There is no credible "self-defense" argument that the United States could make. And the precipitating event in this crisis--Iraq's failure to cooperate with U.N. inspectors--does not come close to a classical justification for war.

Third, going to war against Iraq could actually imperil the United States. When Boris Yeltsin in early February warned repeatedly that a U.S. attack on Iraq "would mean world war," U.S. officials tended to write it off as the mere rumblings of a loose cannon. This is the height of imprudence.

Russia has longstanding ties with Iraq, and Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons that could hit the United States. While it is unlikely that Russia would retaliate against the United States, no threat of a nuclear world war should be dismissed. We have not heard this kind of nuclear saber-rattling in more than a decade, and it might herald the dawn of a new Cold War. That is a real security threat, which we dismiss at our peril.

Fourth, for the United States to threaten nuclear war against Iraq is a gross provocation, one that should disturb not only Yeltsin but all Americans. In late January, the Pentagon went out of its way to...