There is a sense of deja vu this weekend for the US administration as the chief UN arms inspector, Mr Richard Butler, heads for Baghdad with a familiar list of grievances.
US spokesmen are offering the same carefully-orchestrated rhetoric of impatience, stressing international solidarity on the diplomatic front and hinting only in the vaguest terms at the possibility of military action.
The strategy worked well last time. After a nocturnal meeting of foreign ministers in Geneva in November, the Iraqis unexpectedly backed down on US inspectors, agreeing to let them work again without conditions. US diplomats gloated in private at what they thought was an easy victory.
But, like an old wound, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is again nagging for a permanent cure, refusing to comply with the demands of Mr Butler's UN Special Commission, which wants full access to presidential palaces and other sensitive sites.
As Mr Butler talks in Baghdad, the US administration is expected to rattle its formidable sabres to show the Iraqi leaders that there could be a high price to pay for defying the UN and, indirectly, the US.
This time no one is talking about extra sanctions, simply because they can't think of any they could add. In the last round of the confrontation, the UN introduced travel restrictions for some Iraqi officials on top of the trade and other sanctions in force since 1990.
"We're hopeful of a diplomatic solution but we reserve the right to take unilateral action," a White House official said yesterday. "We're not contemplating any tit-for-tat gestures or pinpricks. It would be to remind Saddam of the real cost of his failure to comply."
For months the US has had two aircraft carriers, about 20 other warships, Tomahawk cruise missiles, more than 300 planes and 20,000 military personnel in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea, poised to strike at Iraq.
"The options are shrinking due to the obduracy of the antagonist . . . He (Saddam Hussein) has alienated all of our allies so it's easier to use force," said Prof Ruth Wedgwood, at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
The US could take courage yesterday from Britain's decision to send an aircraft carrier to the Gulf. Nor would the US Congress and public have many qualms about air strikes.
Said Prof Wedgwood: "I can't see it going on like this for months and one moment is as good as another (for military action). It would be graduated and conducted with great scrupulousness to avoid civilian casualties."