Posted on: Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Bush's tough rhetoric not the end of sales job

It is tough to decide what part of President Bush's speech on Iraq last night should take our focus:

Is it his reassurance that war with Iraq is neither imminent nor inevitable?

Or should we focus on his warning that the United States has had it with dissembling, delay and deceit and will get its regime change one way or another?

There was little in Bush's much-anticipated speech that was new. Rather, it was an effective summing up of what has been said and argued before.

What one heard, then, was less an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein than the closing argument of a prosecutor trying to make his case before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations Security Council.

By all accounts, Bush has made his "sale" to Congress and will get a tough resolution authorizing him to take whatever steps he feels necessary.

We must hope, however, that the effort does not stop there. Bush last night outlined a plan that could have Iraq completely disarmed under active United Nations supervision. It is imperative that the United States make every effort to see this through the U.N. even if prospects for success do not look great.

Bush last night made a convincing argument that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous, unpredictable man.

But that is only the first part of the argument he must make. At home, he must continue to build a rock-solid bipartisan coalition in support of regime change in Iraq. And with that in hand, he must continue to work for an international coalition through the United Nations that is capable of dealing forcefully and directly with Iraq.

Iraq clearly presents great risks. So too does going it alone.