If President Clinton bombs Iraq will it be because of Saddam Hussein or Monica Lewinsky?
After months of hostile exchanges between the United States and Baghdad over UN weapons inspections, the White House is leaning increasingly toward unleashing the formidable force it has amassed in the Gulf. But last week's allegations mean any move Mr Clinton makes, including bombing Iraq, will be seen in the light of the scandal engulfing his presidency.
"However this latest scandal ends, it is going to diminish the President's stature, make him more vulnerable to Congressional pressures . . . and cast every foreign policy decision he makes in a jaded light," wrote Thomas Friedman in the Washington Post. "Get ready for: `Do we really have to bomb Saddam, or is the President just doing that to change the subject?"' he wrote.
Damage to Mr Clinton's standing from the Lewinsky scandal, which is consuming Washington and could even sink his presidency, is already seen as weakening his hand on all political fronts.
It disrupted last week's US initiative to revive the Israeli-Palestinian talks and puts in doubt the drive to get a reluctant Congress to help fund the International Monetary Fund bail-out in Asia.
It will complicate the effort to get Congressional approval to expand NATO, pay UN back-dues and back Mr Clinton's decision to keep US forces in Bosnia beyond a June deadline.
But the most immediate national security crisis is Iraq. Mr Clinton met top advisers, including the Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, and the Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, on Saturday amid growing speculation of a military strike in coming weeks.
The US has two aircraft carriers, about 20 other warships, Tomahawk cruise missiles, more than 300 aircraft and 20,000 military personnel in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea, poised to strike at Iraq at a moment's notice.
With China, Russia and France taking a more flexible approach, the US is backed in the Security Council only by Britain in its determination to use force if diplomacy fails to make President Saddam comply with UN mandates.
Baghdad, which the UN says has repeatedly impeded inspectors charged with eliminating its weapons of mass destruction, was quick to jump on the suggestion that Mr Clinton may act more out of personal desperation than reasoned policy.
The newspaper Babel, owned by Mr Saddam's son Uday, said: "To turn attention away from his personal scandal, it is not farfetched that the American President Clinton would undertake a military stupidity against Iraq."
William Safire, a New York Times commentator who has repeatedly questioned Mr Clinton's integrity in his columns, however dismissed suggestions the President might base such a momentous decision as to bomb Iraq on his domestic problems.
"When it comes to acting on behalf of the nation . . . when it comes to putting lives in danger, he is going to be acting as commander-in-chief and not a defendant in a case," Mr Safire said on NBC's Meet the Press.