AT WAR: The Task Ahead.

President Bush gave a war deadline of 8:00 P.M. (EST), March 19 -- seven hours after we go to press. The elements of the struggle have been so long in place, however, that there is perhaps less need than usual to write from the news.

Announcing the deadline, President Bush reviewed all the arguments that have been laid out in the months-long run-up to this point (who can say that he has not made his case?). The long-run danger to us: "using chemical, biological, or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq," terrorists could "kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other." Iraq's contumacy: twelve years of delay and violated U.N. resolutions (678, 687, 1441). The U.N.'s fecklessness: "some permanent members of the Security Council . . . share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it." A promise to the Iraqi people: "no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms." An offer and a warning to Iraqi military: "do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life." A warning to the American people, and a pledge: in desperation Saddam Hussein will try terror here, "yet we're not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers."

It could all have been said earlier, as many commentators (including NR) have urged. But we should beware of the unnatural clarity of retrospect. President Bush decided to give diplomacy a chance after the last chance, in order to build world consensus. He had no way of knowing the depths of German narcissism, French perfidy, or Russian fickleness. There is some virtue in learning it.

Much will be redeemed by military success. Dismantling Saddam's regime will make the United States and its allies safer. Saddam Hussein, who has compared himself to Saladin, is a man of vast ambitions. He cannot accomplish them through conventional military means: In this area, he is weaker than he was before the first Gulf War. But the steady accumulation of weapons of mass destruction can give him the power to threaten his neighbors; slipping them to shadowy allies and clients would weaken his enemies in the ...