'Groundhog Day' in the Gulf

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Talk of beefing up Iraq's internal opposition appears designed primarily to appease Clinton's congressional critics: Analysts see little prospect of the United States' being able to unite the disparate elements of internal anti-Saddam resistance, and success might even pose more of a problem for Washington than the present standoff -- Saddam's internal opponents are primarily secessionist Kurds and pro-Iran Shiite Muslims, both of whom potentially threaten Western interests in the region.

For now, then, the unhappy equilibrium continues, with Saddam maintaining the initiative, because until now he has been able to foment -- and then resolve -- crises. The Iraqi dictator may have come within hours of being bombed this time, but he believes he can survive the air attacks planned by the U.S., and even make them work to his advantage internationally.

So those within the administration who blame Kofi Annan for the stalemate may be looking in the wrong place: "The effectiveness of the U.S. bombing strategy was questionable," says Dowell. "Kofi may have saved us from ourselves."

The real problem, says Dowell, is that the administration began to ask the question "What do we do the day after bombing?" And with no satisfactory answer, calling off the strike became the lesser evil. Whether or not this is, as Defense Secretary Cohen put it, "the last go-round" may now depend less on the work of the arms inspectors than on the efforts of the policy wonks.