World's super cop

With U.S., French and British aircraft patrolling the (no flight) zone, which extends right up to the suburbs of Baghdad, the risk of a clash has increased immeasurably. It would be ironic, as well as tragic, if the American offensive results in precisely the escalation of tension that it was ostensibly supposed to prevent.

Whatever his other crimes, Mr. Saddam can hardly be faulted for restoring order in his own country.

In practice, the U.S. has treated Kurdish-inhabited northern Iraq as lying outside Baghdad's authority. This is of a piece with the West's traditional exploitation of the Kurdish plight for its own strategic purposes.

True, the policing duties that devolve on the world's only superpower may not always make it popular, especially not on those rare occasions, when international stability might call for unilateral intervention.

But, at this rate, it might be hard to tell where American jurisdiction ends, and the domestic sovereignty of other governments begins.

Little wonder then that while two Security Council members, Russia and China, have expressed misgivings about the U.S. missile strikes at Iraq, such Middle Eastern allies as Egypt and Jordan have also criticized the action and stressed support for Iraq's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Iraq's traditional enemy, Iran, is even more critical, and the Arab League, which groups all 22 Arab countries, accuses the U.S. of violating international law.

Few of these countries have much reason to love the Saddam regime, but their present view seems to be that it is the U.S. and not Iraq that poses what U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry calls a "clear and present danger" to the region.

-- Straits Times, Singapore