Everybody, except perhaps Saddam and a few of his close relatives, knows that the eventual military outcome of Gulf War II will be a victory for the Americans and British. But victory won’t help the United States for America lost the real war the day we attacked Iraq.

Think not? Ask yourself these questions. Will the United States be better or worse off at this war’s end? Will less Americans have died than would have otherwise if Saddam had been allowed to keep his weapons of mass destruction? Nuclear and biochemical weapons are good to threaten folks with, but use them once and you end up Taliban toast. Would Saddam ever really have risked their use? Would terrorists haven benefited from access to those weapons? Perhaps, but there are plenty of other places to obtain deadly weapons with or without Iraq’s help. Are we safer from terrorism now than we were before the war? Now that we have stirred up the fanatical hatred of America in the Arab world by our attack?

Not only has Arab public opinion shifted even further into anti-Americanism, but also the people of almost every country in the world are against this war the United States has started. Sounds awful, even untruthful, doesn’t it, to say America has started a war. But we have, for the first time in our history, openly started a war without being attacked first.

Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed wrote recently in the Arab News:

"Why, then, is this giant willing to lose France and Germany as allies, alienate a new ally in Russia, make Bin Laden giggle in his beard with unrestrained joy, and expose all those who would love to help it revenge Sept. 11 and heal its wounds?"

Harold Meyerson, writing in Thursday’s Washington Post said:

"But then, the whole notion of collective security -- the vast architecture of alliances and international law that the United States helped establish over the past 60 years precisely to diminish the prospects of preemptive war -- has seemed to this administration just so much historical baggage. The White House has treated the global warming accords, the International Criminal Court, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the U.N. Charter with the same respect that the German Foreign Ministry accorded its pledge of nonaggression to Belgium in 1914."

The Bush administration hopes that once the war is won, attitudes will shift again. But the world’s people now see America has an empire willing to do whatever it takes to protect itself. And to the world, our efforts only seem to be making things worse. The United States has become a force unto itself unwilling to work with the rest of the world. People fear us. And with fear often comes hate. We have lost whatever confidence other countries placed in us, and are unlikely to get it back any time soon.

Moreover, by our starting this war with Iraq we have lost our own soul. As I projected in another CStation article America As Empire.

The war's strategy also assumed the coalition's task would be made easier by an Iraqi populace enthusiastic about being freed from Hussein's sadistic grip. By the people of Iraq, who have suffered so long, seem to be less than thrilled by an American presence which is causing even more suffering. There is also real possibility of rebellion and violence long after Saddam is gone. But this time with other Iraq citizens and the coalition peace keeping forces as targets. No wonder the average Iraqi seems less than thrilled with the American invasion of their country.

Hussein will eventually be ousted by America’s power for a military victory. But the cost to our political prestige and influence in the world, the death toll of Iraqis and young British and Americans, will most likely feel to us like a loss.