America's War with Itself

Now I'm confused. After a month of weapons inspections, one apparently dodgy dossier from Saddam and a rumored "material breach" of the UN resolution, is the Bush administration ready and raring to attack Iraq - or not?

Guardian columnist Matthew Engel reckons that the U.S. is about to get busy. In a column headlined "Ready for battle", Engel argues that "the energy behind this enterprise has such power that it has long been difficult to imagine the circumstances in which it wouldn't happen". "Behind the Bushies' enthusiasm for war", writes Engel, "the political timetable is creating the same sense of inevitability as the railway timetable in 1914".

But according to the London Times, some of America's top military men - in fact, the top military men - are getting cold feet about all-out war. "General Eric Shinseki, chief of the U.S. Army, and General James Jones, commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps, fear that the present war plan dangerously underestimates the risks of attacking Iraq", says The Times. How can bombing Baghdad be "inevitable" if even Shinseki and Jones are voicing their doubts?

Then there's Saddam's "material breach". According to President Bush and UK foreign secretary Jack Straw, he's committed one. According to the New York Times, Bush thinks that "Iraq has violated the United Nations resolution requiring it to disclose all its weapons of mass destruction." And we know what was promised in the event of a material breach - "serious consequences". "The U.S. government is talking about "breaches" now", says one newspaper, "in the clearest sign yet that war is imminent".

But Bush officials deny that a material breach will inevitably lead to an invasion. "Officials said they did not expect that the Iraqi violations would be described by Bush as an immediate cause for war, but rather as a 'serious matter'", says one report. Post-material breach, there isn't a furious White House on the warpath so much as, in the words of one U.S. official, "a patient White House, very concerned about another failure by Iraq to cooperate but willing to allow the weapons inspections to go ahead."

What about the build-up of American and British forces in the Gulf, seen by many as foolproof evidence of the West's thirst for war? "Up to 30,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen have been ordered by the [UK] Ministry of Defence to be ready for action", said the Mirror this week, suggesting that "a round-the-clock air assault may now be just weeks away." For the Sun, the number of British and American troops now in and around Iraq represents "an Armada", which will "destroy Saddam."

But British and American defence officials are talking down the troop movements. UK defence secretary Geoff Hoon "stressed" that war with Iraq is "not imminent or inevitable." He describes the shipment of British troops as part of "long-planned exercises in the Indian Ocean", which will simply "pass by" the Gulf. An MoD official told BBC News: "It is not heading for the Gulf. It could head for the Gulf." That's cleared that up, then.

Warning: reading coverage of the Iraqi crisis can invoke a heightened state of confusion. Has Saddam committed a material breach - and just what is a material breach? After a material breach has been detected, will there be all-out war or more inspections? And can America really go to war if the hawks in the White House want it but the commanders in the military don't?

All of this confusion isn't just a "public working out of a strategy for Iraq", as one journalist has put it. Rather, the clashing claims over whether, when or how to launch a new Gulf War reflect far deeper uncertainties within the U.S. and Western elites. The planned attack on Iraq may have started life as an attempt to unite the American elite and give focus to the West's flagging war on terror, but it has ended up exacerbating tensions and divisions within the U.S., making explicit America's crisis of confidence. And the more the war talk drags on, the worse it gets.