LONDON -- I don't know what destruction may be visited on the Iraqis by the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein himself in the next few weeks. But it is clear that great waves of destruction are already roaring through the institutions of social democracy in Western Europe, caused by the threat to attack Iraq.

The first casualty in Britain is obviously the Labour Party. Backbench Labour members of Parliament are buzzing over whether, and on what conditions, they would vote against their government over its right -- moral or constitutional -- to declare a war against Iraq. There are no figures on how many grass-roots members have left the party as a protest against British Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for U.S. President George W. Bush's belligerence, but certainly thousands have.

At a meeting called in North London last week to discuss Labour's opposition to the war, the Labour Party members speaking -- redoubtable antiwar leftwing MPs Alice Mahon and Jeremy Corbyn -- pleaded with the audience to fight from within. There were, said the chairwoman, application forms on the table for those who had left to rejoin.