For US, few reasons to delay war

Even as the Bush administration moves militarily and diplomatically toward war with Iraq, a conflict pitting the world's superpower against the Middle East's most notorious despot is not yet inevitable. But the scenarios for avoiding war in the first months of 2003 are shrinking.

Saddam Hussein continues to demonstrate, as with his recent decision to allow Iraqi weapons scientists to be interviewed outside the country, that he can still stretch out the weapons-inspections process and buy time and sympathy with the international community.

Furthermore, events external to the Iraqi confrontation, such as the deepening North Korean nuclear crisis, could also escalate to a point where they nudge aside Iraq from its full dominance of US sights.

But the US military mobilization, the administration's tough rhetoric, and the high bar for what would be an acceptable outcome, all have experts finding few scenarios under which war can be put off.

"I don't mean to say war is inevitable, because I don't think it is. But there's an internal dynamic to what's been done and what's under way now that will make it very hard to back off," says Ralph Peters, a former US Army intelligence specialist on the Middle East.

Many observers now see an apt comparison to the weeks preceding World War I, when European leaders spoke of avoiding war but set in motion a process that led to a point of no return.

"In 1914, the thinking was that nothing could stop the coming war, and similarly we're getting to a point where there's such a commitment to this and so much at stake that it will be very hard to stop the train," says Judith Yaphe, a senior Middle East analyst at the National Defense University in Washington.

Adding to the current sense of an approaching point of no return, the Pentagon has ordered a new deployment of ground forces, combat aircraft, and ground support for a potential Iraq war. The White House insists that this deployment, like earlier ones, is an attempt to keep up the pressure on Mr. Hussein to disarm.

Experts say the list of what could stop a war now is short:

• Events inside Iraq (most of which few experts expect to see), such as Hussein doing what almost everyone agrees he didn't do in his Dec. 7 weapons declaration: giving a full account of his weapons programs and swearing off their possession in the future. Domestic action against Hussein's rule, such as a military coup, could also forestall a war, but most experts say no rebellion against Hussein should be expected at least until American and allied troops hit Iraqi soil.

• Cataclysmic events outside Iraq, such as war on the Korean peninsula or a rapid deterioration into complete chaos and warfare in Afghanistan.

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