President Clinton has managed to rally his supporters and reassert himself politically and psychologically this week as he fights off the crisis unleashed by the Lewinsky issue. His flat denial of allegations that he had a sexual relations with the young woman or asked her to commit perjury, his wife's feisty defence of him, and his generally well-received State of the Union address on Tuesday and appeal yesterday to supporters in Illinois all demonstrate that he cannot be written off, as many people have been tempted to do. But the legal problem still hangs over him as he remains vulnerable to the release of further evidence. There is also a gathering fear internationally that Mr Clinton could be permanently weakened by the scandal, even if he does survive it, and that he might be tempted to act recklessly against Iraq precisely in order to do so. The legal vulnerability remains true despite the allegations, many of them plausible, that Mr Clinton has been the victim of right-wing conspirators. Due legal process must be seen to apply in his case, all the more so after his denials. Even if it proves impossible to produce evidence that Mr Clinton sought to suborn the legal process by asking Ms Lewinsky to deny they had sexual relations, his position must be endangered and his office coarsened by the steady drip of leaks and innuendo. He is, of course, nothing if not resilient and famously at his political best in a tight corner, but this scandal seems so much a product of his own recklessness as to defy simple conspiratorial analysis. In their preoccupation with the scandal's minutiae many of the US and international media are in danger of losing sight of its consequences for US leadership and influence around the world. It erupts just as another crisis with Iraq, possibly a military confrontation, comes fully on to the international agenda. There should be no underestimating the gravity of the issues at stake. United Nations inspectors believe Saddam Hussein retains the capacity and will to manufacture fearsome chemical and biological weapons and to project them throughout the Middle East regions. They interpret his refusal to allow open access to suspected facilities as a calculated rebuke to the international community. But there is room for genuine disagreement about how best to respond, as can be seen among the members of the Security Council. The US and Britain are arguing the case for a retaliatory military strike against Iraq, which is opposed by Russia, France and China. Any such action must have a fresh Security Council sanction to be legitimate. A unilateral strike would be just that. It would be perilous given the parlous state of the Middle East peace process, also suffering from Mr Clinton's preoccupations with the scandal, and highly imprudent precisely because it could be so readily presented as a convenient means of diverting attention from it. Diplomacy still remains the better way of handling the question.
Whether in the Middle East, in the Asian financial crisis or in US relations with Europe a strong presidential role is an indispensable requirement of international political order. If this scandal is not resolved relatively swiftly and decisively the world will be rather less stable as we head towards 2000.