The spectre of a United States-led attack on Iraq early in the new year haunts international affairs at the end of 2002. It adds deep unease to an already uncertain world.
A year ago such a prospect seemed remote. Attention in Ireland and elsewhere was concentrated on the US attack on al-Qaeda bases and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, after the devastating September 11th assaults on New York and Washington for which they were deemed responsible. A possible war between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India hovered in the background of that intervention.
On the eve of 2003 one can only hope a possible war against Iraq, along with its widely predicted regional and worldwide political and economic effects, will have as little disruptive impact as these events had on world affairs.
On most rational calculations that would be a foolish expectation indeed. War is not inevitable. Iraq may comply with United Nations demands that it gets rid of any weapons of mass destruction it possesses; but the likelihood of a war increases by the week, as US and allied military forces are put in place around its borders.
An undoubted aspect of power is the ability to set the political agenda. So it has been with the United States and Iraq throughout 2002. There is a tenuous connection at best between the Saddam Hussein regime and the al-Qaeda organisation, between Iraq and international terrorism.
President Bush's administration has nonetheless succeeded in focusing international attention on the dangers to world stability posed by Iraq's suspected development of weapons of mass destruction and the fear they will be used against its antagonists in the region or distributed to elements who would do so.
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This has been done by a combination of assertion and diplomacy belying the impression that Mr Bush has opted decisively for unilateral means of conducting US foreign policy. His decision to pursue the case against Iraq through the UN Security Council reflected political pressure from European allies. It reinforced the case made by multilateralists within the administration that the US's overwhelming military superiority cannot guarantee political hegemony and that power used magnanimously magnifies influence.
Their argument was bolstered by the unanimous Security Council decision on Resolution 1441 warning Iraq it must comply; that display of international political and legal will, together with the clear and mounting threat of force could achieve the desired outcome without a war. But sufficient ambiguity remains in the resolution about Security Council authorisation for the use of force to ensure a major conflict of interpretation over the coming weeks.
A war against Iraq would be highly risky for international political and economic stability. The more it reflected unilateral US objectives and means and the longer it lasted the more dangerous it would be.
Such a war would exacerbate Middle East conflicts, especially the primary, festering one between Israel and the Palestinians. It would reinforce terrorist movements by emphasising the impression of a civilisational war between the Western and Muslim worlds. It would bring major uncertainty to world oil markets and therefore to the prospects of recovery from the patchy and uneven performance of the international economy through 2002.
If the Iraqi regime was swiftly overthrown most of these risks would still remain; avoiding them would require levels of international commitment and unity of purpose which look quite unrealistic.
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These are the immediate concerns posed by the confrontation with Iraq. They are sufficiently serious and global in their potential impact to justify the attention they currently receive. They concentrate several of the most important elements requiring urgent action in the year to come.
It is in the nature of the existing distribution of global power and influence that this should be so. How these issues are resolved in the year to come will affect relations between the United States and Europe, as the European Union consolidates the historic continental enlargement agreed this year and decides how it should be organised in political and security terms. They will deeply affect Europe's relations with the neighbouring Middle East region. And they will directly influence the economic well-being of the developed and developing worlds.
The Iraq crisis bears little if at all on some of the most pressing problems facing humanity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Despite the huge potential of technology, productive capacity and communications the fruits of globalisation are unevenly spread and this remains a highly unequal world. Its environment is increasingly threatened by rapacious interests and short-sighted policies. Treatable or preventable diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis threaten to engulf large new populations.
It would nevertheless be quite wrong to despair. Political and moral choices are there to be made. Public engagement makes a real difference.
Ireland has a small but potentially influential voice on world affairs through the UN and the EU. It should be fully discussed and heard as the international debate on Iraq unfolds in 2003.