William Saletan is in favor of a resolution authorizing war with Iraq! To explain why I am surprised at this, let me tell you that Mr Saletan is strongly opposed to war with Iraq as are most of the writers at Slate. What he realizes, and everybody else in the liberal left should realize, that when President Bush asked for authorization to declare war on Iraq, the best way to stop him from going forward with war is to give him permission. If Bush's only aim was to get Saddam Hussein he could have just ordered massive unauthorized attacks on Iraq - an unofficial war. The President of the United States can do that. Obviously he asked for permission, so elimination of Saddam Hussein is not the only goal, or at least it isn't important enough to risk becoming extremely unpopular. Bush's constant pushing on the issue has had the effect of causing our allies to yield to increasingly more drastic consequences for Iraq should they fail to disarm. Iraq in turn has been forced to be more conciliatory. The game liberals should play is that Saddam is rational enough to finally yield in the face of certain annihilation. Bush wants to test the theory of Self Preservation - Saddam doesn't want to die so he won't use nuclear, chemical, or bioligical weapons against us. If Saddam is rational he will yield and and the liberals will have proved their point. If he is not we'll go to war and President Bush and the Hawks will be vindicated.