You know, I link to Steven Den Beste's site more than I probably should; I feel like I'm a scavenger cleaning up the scraps left behind by a big predator. But here we go again.

I think Steven is missing a fairly big piece of the puzzle; he still assigns too much importance -- or rather, the wrong kind of importance -- to Hans Blix's see-no-evil weapons inspection. The belief is, apparently, that Blix will report enough violations that we can claim that Iraq is in material breach, and then we unleash the hounds of war.

Of course, Blix and most of the members of the UN Security Council are steadfastly opposed to that outcome, and will deny that sufficient evidence of violation exists to justify the use of force, blah blah friggin' blah, you've heard it all before. We attack anyway, the Europeans are humiliated, etc.

That outcome lacks the finesse of earlier moves of the Bush administration; it's much more their style to shame or outmaneuver their opponents into going along with his plans, than simply to defy them outright.

And it is extremely unlikely that Bush would allow his strategy to hinge in any way on Hans Blix's conduct and judgement. Bush and Blair would not make the kind of force commitment they have made unless they already had compelling evidence in hand.

So are the inspections just a smoke-and-mirror show, something to pass the time while our forces are being deployed? Are they just a sop to our fair-weather allies?

No. Blix is performing a vitally important function. Not, mind you, the function that he thinks he's performing, but vital nonetheless.

It is unrealistic to expect that the inspections would actually discover Iraq's stores of WMDs; hiding them sufficiently well -- in some cases by transporting them out of Iraq entirely -- is simply too easily done.

But keeping the weapons hidden, while simultaneously preparing them for battlefield use -- that is effectively impossible. As long as the UN inspections are going on, Iraq's chemical and biological weapons are neutralized, removed from the field of battle, while our own preparations proceed unhindered. And by the time the Iraqis can move again, it will be too late; the shooting will have already begun.

Hans Blix will have neutralized the one semi-effective means the Iraqis had of resisting the Anglo-American invasion, and will have done so entirely unwittingly. Amazing how this legendary dimwit of a President keeps outsmarting all these smart people, isn't it?

UPDATE (19-Jan-2003): Bill Quick disagrees.

I was thinking primarily of chemical agents: Saddam has used them in the past against both the Kurds and Iran; and radiological and biowarfare weapons wouldn't kill quickly enough to be useful on the battlefield. (What good does it do you if the enemy's soldiers die two weeks after they've overrun your capital?)

The inspections aren't preventing the deployment of the missiles themselves, of course; the Scud launchers are surely already in the field and lying low. But as was explained in recent reports about the empty warheads discovered by the inspectors, chemo weapons can't be stored in the munitions themselves in the long term; the warheads would be filled almost immediately before launch.

If, at the time inspections began, Saddam assumed -- as I believe Bill assumed as well -- that the US hadn't yet committed to an attack, then the chemo weapons would all be in some kind of long-term storage, and would have stayed there for the duration of the inspections. The plan would have been to move them to the launchers when it became obvious attack was imminent, indicated by a sudden troop build-up, presuming that inspections would be over by then. But of course, that build-up is happening now, while inspections are still in progress.

Some of the chemo weapons are reported to have been transported out of Iraq entirely to avoid detection. Those weapons are gone for good; it now looks like there won't be enough time between the completion of inspections and the commencement of fighting for them to be retrieved.

The effectiveness of the inspectors in preventing the movement of WMDs depends not on our perception of the Blix team's effectiveness, but on Saddam's perception. He surely believes that there are American spies and saboteurs among the inspectors; he's said so often enough. (And who knows, he might be right.)

As for the risk-reward calculation, what risk? If it works, we may save some of our soldiers' lives; if it doesn't work, we're no worse off than if we didn't make use of the inspectors in this manner. Yes, the special forces in the field will probably be more successful, but why not pursue both tactics?

Perhaps this result, if it does pan out, is simply a happy accident, rather than a consciously-crafted scheme. But the timing of events seem to have worked to Bush's advantage several times running: the day after the 9/11 anniversary observance was exactly the right time to prod the UNSC into action; a month before the election was exactly the right time to extract an authorization of military action from the Senate; and now Saddam needs to prepare for the invasion at precisely the time he is under the greatest pressure from his European apologists to be on his best behavior. If it happens often enough, you have to wonder if it really is just chance.