WAR ON IRAK

New York Times: Who Has the Hot Rods?
Colin Powell finally has the goods on the evil dictator.

He has spy satellite photos of trucks pulling up to buildings in the outlaw regime when inspectors aren't around, lots of bustling activity around those metal rods for the nukes threatening civilization.

Mr. Powell has all the evidence he needs to convince the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that we are justified in making a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.

Only one hitch: President Bush doesn't want to attack North Korea; he wants to contain North Korea.

Mr. Bush shouldn't reach for strained rationales. We're going to war against Saddam because we can. (If we go after Kim Jong Il, he could destroy Seoul.) We're going to war because conservatives will be happy only when they have a John Wayne ending to Desert Storm and make U.S. foreign policy less about realpolitik and more about muscularity and morality. We're going to war because we're a nation with a short attention span; we want to strike back at some enemy, and it is too hard to find Osama. (The Brits now say they and the U.S. knew Al Qaeda was working on a dirty bomb even before 9/11.)