PARIS -- It was hardly a surprise that less than a month after U.S. President George W. Bush's inauguration, the U.S. Air Force should have launched a raid against Iraqi missile batteries and radars close to Baghdad. The flights of the U.S. and British jets supposed to protect the "no-fly" zones where the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites live had been increasingly disturbed by Iraqi missiles. Despite some 8,000 strikes directed against Iraq in recent years and sanctions adopted by the United Nations, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had managed to do several things: to rebuild with most of the Arab monarchies the links that had been damaged in 1990 by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait; to smuggle some 400,000 barrels of oil per day to his neighbors; and to proceed in the absence of foreign control with his missile-building and atomic-research programs, leading Israel to fear the worst from a country that has made no secret of its desire to destroy it.

Add the fact that the new U.S. president intends to hew as closely as possible to the line followed by his father, the victor in the Persian Gulf War, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was then defense secretary, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who chaired the joint chiefs of staff. There is no doubt that in their eyes, Hussein rivals terrorist Osama bin Laden as America's No. 1 public enemy and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as a ruler of the kind of "rogue state" against which they intend to build their hotly debated missile shield. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's priority in the region was to bring about peace between Israel and Palestine. Bush is less interested in that conflict, a welcome attitude for new Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who would like to be left free to do what he wants, without any foreign interference. In the same way, the new U.S. team would like to be left free do what it wants with Hussein.

It is also no surprise that the British are participating in the anti-Iraqi action. Prime Minister Tony Blair never lost an opportunity to portray himself as Clinton's closest ally. The Royal Air Force has been associated with the U.S. raids since the Gulf War ended, and Britain treasures its reputation as America's closest ally. "If we had to choose some day between Europe and the open sea, be sure, General, that we would choose the open sea," Winston Churchill told Charles de Gaulle in June 1944. There has been only one exception to that rule: in November 1956, when French and British troops landed on the Sinai Peninsula to help the Israelis against the Egyptians. Then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower vetoed that action, and London instantly acquiesced.