Here's an excellent "letter to the editor" by Paul Serfaty, as published in today's South China Morning Post:

Protests based on peace, not propping up Saddam

Anti-war protesters do not believe Saddam Hussein is a nice man. No one disputes Iraq is likely to be better off without him. He is comparable, in his use of chemical weapons and his treatment of minorities, with Hitler. But the parallel stops there.

There were no protests against the war on Hitler in 1939 because he had by then invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland and followed that up by swallowing Denmark and Norway. When he afterwards invaded Belgium, Holland and France, the decision to wage physical war was not exactly a difficult one, and demonstrating against such a defensive war somewhat eccentric.

But the latest anti-war movement doubts the motives of President George W. Bush, doubts the evidence he has presented for war and for the timing of war (it is freezing in the desert at night), and the way he has discarded the agreed disarmament process. It feels that ignoring allies who are physically present in and expert about areas of conflict — in which they have vital interests — may lead to grievous errors. The Arab nations around Iraq and Iran; the Asian nations around North Korea; the Europeans by virtue of their experience of conflict: all are concerned about this friend and ally that now feels it knows our interests better than we do ourselves — enough to dictate to us.

It is concerned that the unilateral abandonment of the accepted constraints on military action destabilises the world further and that the refusal to accept the constraints of multilateralism undermines international due process and takes us backwards to a Bismarckian "might is right". The Bush administration can even break a 50-year taboo to discuss use of nuclear weapons as a tool of modern war.

This reckless passion to dominate is so very far from Winston Churchill's "broad uplands" vision of human progress — progress for which so many died — that the anti-war movement feels the words from Longfellow that Churchill quoted in 1941: "But Westward, look, the land is bright", have been at best sadly compromised, at worst betrayed.

None of these protests are about the legitimacy of Saddam Hussein's rule. They are about building an effective mechanism for controlling the buildup of conflicts, not exacerbating them.

PAUL SERFATY
Mid-Levels