It’s too early to decide with hindsight just how just this war on Iraq will have been, but events are certainly tilting in favour I’m in London for the long weekend for my sister’s wedding, so you will be getting English spellings for the duration of my stay.of the war party. The welcome given to US troops in Baghdad was undeniably moving, though not as pervasive as Fox News will have us believe.

Even CNN glossed over some points that were more accurately reported by non-US media. Unbridled gratitude towards the US was by no means the only emotion. Writing in Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter, their correspondent noted that spontaneous discussions broke out among strangers on the streets, who, free for the first time to speak openly in over 20 years, berated the moronic marine who had to go drape an American flag upside down over the statue’s head. An upside down flag is an international distress signal, I was told by the helpful retired general on CNN; which leads me to wonder how the Japanese show distress. Perhaps they never do.She also pointed out that almost all of the celebrants were Shi’ite Muslims, persecuted by Saddam, whereas the more pokerfaced bystanders were Sunni.

Al Jazeera coverage was deflated; they could not bring themselves to show the scenes of celebration at the demise of a Saddam statue for the hour I watched them last night, noting (correctly) that there were relatively few people out on the streets, the bulk of Baghdad remaining at home. But the jubilation was infectious. When their correspondent was asked the leading question as to why the Americans needed to gloat by tearing down a statue of Saddam, he corrected the anchor, saying that it was the Iraqis who wanted the statue toppled, but that they couldn’t manage it by themselves, that they enlisted the help of the Americans; he even suggested that this was somehow symbolic of the entire conflict. On Al Jazeera!

This positive reception in Baghdad will take the sting out of the argument that the coalition is leading a war of aggression against Arabs. But it is important to remember that, much like the killing of Iraqi civilians in coalition bombings was collateral damage, giving Iraqis an open society is a collateral benefit of a war justified by the US on an unrelated legal case.

Giving Iraqis the gift of democracy is not worth $100 billion and 150 coalition lives. That level of sacrifice on the part of the US, UK and Australia could be expended to much greater effect elsewhere, if the aim were to improve the quality of the greatest number of lives. Instead, The US made the case before the Security Council that it knew Iraq to be in possession of prohibited chemical and biological weapons, putting it in material breach of its ceasefire obligations. This accusation needs to be proven true for the war to have any legal standing whatsoever; Colin Powell also insinuated before the Security Council that there were links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, mainly to bolster the claim that such a breach also constitutes an imminent threat. if no such proof is forthcoming, the war will still end up a fiasco.

I think it’s fair to suggest that Blair and Bush know this. They are waging a pre-emptive war on the understanding that its justification will be furnished retroactively. In the coming weeks, the pressure will grow on them to deliver on this essential promise. I can easily see Rumsfeld and Bush brushing off such concerns, however. Look at the happy Iraqis, they will, say, that is reward enough, and the proscribed weapons, should they not be found, could have been smuggled to Syria, or Iran. Indeed, such notions are already being floated by the more enterprising commentators on Fox News.

For hardcore Neo-cons, like our erstwhile dean Wolfowitz, Iraq is only the beginning. Combining Iraq’s intransigence vis-á-vis the U.N. with a lowered tolerance for outlaw regimes after 9/11 into a viable casus belli required the squaring of some legal circles, and the evident strain resulted in the balking at such an endeavour by many traditional allies. But making the case for invading Iraq may prove to have been relatively easy. Doing the same thing to Syria or Iran would result in much stronger resistance. For me, the worst case scenario would be that this easy victory over Saddam emboldens the Neo-cons to go remake some more Arab countries, ones that do not have tentative cease-fire agreements with the U.N. Best case scenario: Blair gets his way with Bush and they decide to remake Palestine. It should have been at the top of the list in the first place.