Time was when those threatening to go to war had to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt. Today we are asked to prove to the powerful, to their satisfaction, why they should not go to war. The U.N. inspectors don't have to prove that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has to prove that he doesn't. The gap between world public opinion that has hardened against a war and the voting equation in the Security Council in New York presents a rare opportunity for diluting the cynicism of Soviet-era dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn's remark that, at the U.N., the people of the world are served up to the designs of governments.

There is a sense of helpless anger about hurtling toward a war no one wants. In Canada, Europe and Asia, the depth of alienation from U.S. policy on Iraq is quite striking. In India, people dub it "dadagiri": bullying by the neighborhood tough in a global neighborhood.

West Europeans use startlingly strong language for the Bush administration's "monomaniacal focus on Iraq." Because of U.S. ability to twist governments' arms in bilateral dealings, the gap between popular opinion and government policy is often very wide, and the resulting anger and bitterness for this too is directed at Washington.