What are the choices facing George Bush as America gears up, with seeming determination, to move against Saddam Hussein? Patrick Smyth inWashington assesses his options.
THE success of the Bush administration in maintaining a facade of public unity on key international issues - not least on how to deal with Iraq - is testimony to a remarkable shared willingness on the part of key protagonists not to play their hands until they absolutely have to.
It's part loyalty to the commander in chief, part the canny calculation of master infighters like the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the Defence Secretary, Don Rumsfeld, who believe that events will tip the balance their way.
Behind the scenes, however, by many accounts, fierce debates are raging about when and how to deal with Saddam Hussein whose manifestations in the press through proxies, like the tips of icebergs, only hint at the far larger hidden disagreements. Publicly all we are told is that the President has no plans on his desk but that he regards the issue as one that has to be dealt with.
Unity is also maintained by public agreement between the State and Defence departments that Saddam cannot be allowed to acquire the weapons of mass destruction that he is seeking, and that the only way to stop him is "regime change" in Baghdad.
If he obtains such weapons, the argument goes, traditional deterrence will no longer be effective, particularly in the last-throw-of-the-dice scenario where Saddam believes he is close to being overthrown. At that point he might be prepared to launch an attack on US troops or Israel with such weapons.
Israel's government is making clear that such an attack would provoke massive retaliation, unlike the restraint it showed during the Gulf War when Tel Aviv accepted US arguments that its intervention would escalate the conflict. So Saddam must be stopped before he acquires them.
Such a consensus, however, obscures huge differences over means, from scenarios which range from diplomatic inertia to sending in the special forces and bombers within months. At the centre of the debate is the question whether the successful Afghanistan campaign experience can be replicated in Iraq.
The hawks who believe it can include the deputy Secretary of Defence, Mr Paul Wolfowitz; the deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Near East and South Asian Affairs, Mr William Lutti; a former assistant secretary in Defence, Mr Richard Perle, now chair of a Pentagon advisory body, and a key Bush adviser on terrorism, retired army general Mr Wayne Downing.
This group argues that the US should arm and train indigenous Iraqi forces over the next few months and then support their attacks on Iraq's army with air support and special forces on the ground. The US would also declare an interim government. The idea assumes that a credible military challenge to Saddam will provoke mass defections from his army and even popular uprisings.
Defence department strategists are putting a great deal of faith in the opposition Iraqi National Congress, a group much favoured by the US Congress and for whom Downing acted as a consultant. Its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, is disliked by many Iraqis and viewed with contempt by the State Department, not least over suspicions he may have embezzled some of the money he has already got from the US.
None of the neighbouring countries is willing to serve as a base for an organisation they regard as ineffectual - certainly no Northern Alliance.
State department critics of the plan warn that comparisons with Afghanistan are simply not valid. Saddam has a 400,000-strong army, 10 times that of the Taliban, and several hundred thousand paramilitary forces. Even in the wake of the pounding it received in the Gulf War, Iraq's Republican Guard put down the largest popular uprising in Iraqi history. Even if deeply unpopular, the regime is much more entrenched in the population than that of the Taliban.
An even more controversial alternative, advocated publicly in Foreign Affairs by Kenneth Pollack, a former Clinton National Security Council adviser on the region, would involve massive numbers of US ground troops to seize and defend parts of the country. Mr Pollack, who should certainly have access to military planners, puts the requirement at 200,000-300,000 men and 700-1,000 aircraft.
Such plans are reported by respected journalist Seymour Hersch to have support in the air force and the navy but not, crucially, yet in the leadership of the marines.
Mr Pollack insists that much of the regional opposition to an attack on Iraq, from friendly states such as Jordan, Turkey, the Gulf states and even Egypt, would lift once the US demonstrated its real seriousness of purpose and that some of them have already hinted as much. Perle has claimed recently that "Arabs are like most people. They like winners and will go with winners all the time."
Others believe such an about-face would put intolerable domestic strains on many of the regimes. The US's European allies, from the EU to Russia, would be bitterly opposed to such action, with the possible exception of Britain. France and Russia would work to block any UN mandate although the US insists it already has one because of Iraq's refusal to submit to mandated arms inspection.
The former State Department spokesman, James Rubin, says that department favours yet another option based solely on using air power to take out the sites where Saddam is believed to be rebuilding his capability for weapons of mass destruction.
Officials around Mr Powell are reported as arguing that the approach would have the virtue of greater acceptability among allies and would postpone the day when Iraq could pose a threat once again while not effecting a change of regime immediately.
The strategy has critics, though, who warn of the effect bombing and civilian casualties could have on Arab opinion. Mr Scott Ritter, a former marine who headed UN inspection teams in the '90s, predicts the Iraqi army would respond to an invasion or bombing by dispersing into the villages and towns. "What will we do, flatten the towns?" he asked Hersch.
The State Department is also working to build an alternative more credible opposition alliance without the INC, involving some former Iraqi officers. Among them is a former chief of staff, Nizar Khazraji, who defected in the mid-90s and is seen as able to reach out to the Iraqi officer corps.
Two of the key Kurdish factions, the PUK and KDP, have been meeting pro-Iranian Shia groups, the Supreme Islamic Council for Revolution in Iraq and the Iraqi National Accord, to discuss acting together. Later in the month a major conference of exiled Iraqis is planned for Washington.
US officials warn that while none of the options is appealing or without risk, the status quo in Iraq is simply not acceptable, a message echoed yesterday by President Bush.
What seems clear, however, is that while operations continue in Afghanistan and the situation is as volatile on the ground in Palestine, the US will stay its hand, unwilling to engage on two fronts at one time. At the UN, France and Russia will continue to press the Iraqis to cut the ground from the Americans by readmitting inspectors and recent talks in New York were reported to be positive.
Iraqi wants to see the end to sanctions, not its replacement next month by a more targeted regime, and the ending of the US-enforced no-fly zones. However, its talk of establishing a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, an attempt to embarrass the Israelis, lacks credibility.
Meanwhile, the US Vice-President, Dick Cheney, tours the region testing the water among the US's friends. He will find it hot but that is unlikely to deter one of the administration's toughest hawks.
Patrick Smyth is Washington Correspondent of The Irish Times