What to do with the wicked Saddam Hussein is neither a new problem nor a simple one. As military tension mounts, however, it is clear that if the USA goes to war with Iraq, either alone or with only the backing of the UK, Europe’s relations with America will be in a terrible crisis. This matters because the transatlantic partnership has been one of the constants of life since 1940. It is now already jeopardised by arguments over trade, farm policy, food science, sustainable development, fundamental rights and Palestine. Taken together, it is clear that the Europe America relationship is being destabilised, and our joint institutions, notably NATO, undermined. A declaration of war against Iraq would be the last straw.

Liberal democracies do not like going to war. We have had enough experience of the terrible costs involved – human, economic and ecological – to know that war is the very last resort in a long line of other, softer measures. There are diplomatic avenues that have still to be explored, let alone exhausted. It is not excluded that UN weapons inspectors will be allowed back into Iraq on one condition or another. The existing sanctions regime against Iraq can be toughened up. The Iraqi opposition could become more coordinated, effective and even lucky. The diplomatic weight of Russia could swing in more determinedly behind the Western allies. No single act would lighten tension more than a concerted effort by the US, backed by the United Nations, to set up an independent Palestinian state and to stem the current spate of Israeli and Palestinian violence.

It does not seem right to become obsessed by Saddam Hussein when the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems still far from complete. There is little or no published evidence to demonstrate that Saddam is linked with Al-Quaida. Osama bin Laden is – or was – a Saudi citizen, not an Iraqi. The evidence is, indeed, that Saudi Arabia and other fairly tyrannical regimes in the Middle East and Moslem Africa – many supported now or in the recent past by the US – are at least as much a provocation to and source of international terrorism as Iraq.

The European Union as a whole is opposed to a war against Iraq. The British prime minister must respect this opposition and deal with it in the democratic ways the EU provides. He and President Bush should launch a pre-emptive strike against Saddam only if and when the UN Security Council can be persuaded to back it. If Mr Blair is not able to win round his European partners, Britain should stand aside from the battle.