NEW DELHI -- U.S. President George W. Bush is taking a big gamble with his single-minded mission to get rid of a toothless but unsavory dictator, who, far from being a menace to U.S. security, is not a threat even to his neighbors. Bush, who accuses Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein of being "a homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction," has raised the war rhetoric to such a level that he has left himself with little choice but to effect a regime change in Baghdad through the application of military force.

The looming attack on Iraq, coupled with Washington's unveiling of a new doctrine of pre-emption against future threats, raises troubling questions relating to international law and international relations. While retaliation is recognized by international law as part of the sovereign right of self-defense, pre-emption seeks to turn international law on its head.

The attraction of a "winnable" war against Hussein vs. an interminable, unwinnable war against terrorism is such that the more difficult that Osama bin Laden, Mullah Mohammad Omar and other al-Qaeda-Taliban leaders have become to trace, the more dangerous and larger than life Hussein has emerged in Bush's portrayal. America's current policies, however, threaten to deepen the Muslim sense of humiliation and carry ominous implications for the future.