Hail to Fredonia! The Bush administration adopts a Marxist (brothers') approach to war-making in Iraq. (margin notes).

"TO WAR, TO WAR, TO WAR WE'RE GONNA GO! A-high-dee-high-dee-high-dee-high-dee-high-dee-high-dee-ho!" Forgive my giddiness, but I can't help turning over that delirium-inducing dance sequence from the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup in my mind these days.

Who can blame me when each morn the good old New York Times carries the latest in a series of progressively ominous "leaks" related to America's willfully inevitable showdown with Iraq? So far the war drums along the Potomac haven't quite generated the same enthusiasm for mayhem the Marx Brothers achieved among the citizenry of Fredonia, but amid all the dark insinuations about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," they might as well roll out the dancing generals and see what happens.

But before CNN starts rolling tapes of Iraqis spearing infants on bayonets, can we all step back a minute and take a deep breath? Does anyone besides the Bush administration want this war to happen? Are we sending our soldiers off to die and kill to secure our national security or to satisfy some inchoate longing to get even with a man who has made a career--and a regime--out of thumbing his nose at the U.S. in general and the Bush family in particular? How dangerous is Saddam Hussein really, and what are the many possible--and toxic--outcomes of Gulf War II?

We've been told for more than a decade what an evil man Hussein is. Case closed--not even the most patchouli-addled of pacifists want to break bread with him. But keeping a lid on Hussein's ambitions and scheming doesn't require 250,000 ground troops and cloudbursts of cluster bombs.

The Catholic Church teaches that the use of arms must not produce disorders graver than the evil intended to be eliminated. Western-leaning Arab leaders, amid assertions that their territory will not be made available for a U.S. invasion force, assure U.S. policymakers that a "preemptive" attack on Iraq--preemptive apparently serving here as a newly coined synonym for "unprovoked"--will only deepen Islamic hostility to the U.S. and lead Western civ into truly uncharted territory. Radical Islamic rebellions in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are among some of the worst-case scenarios one can only hope Washington warmongers are taking into consideration as they work out the subtle details of U.S. Iraqi policy. A radicalized Pakistan might encourage India to make a preemptive strike of its own, and then we'll really get to see some weapons of mass destruction put to their intended use.

The U.S. bishops already insist that the Iraq sanctions program is morally flawed because "innocent civilians suffer for the actions of a regime over which they have no control." Subjecting these same people to outright war in an effort to remove the regime that already oppresses them builds upon the immoral foundation of the sanctions policy.

Hussein will not be dumb enough to repeat Gulf War mistakes. This war will not be fought on an M-1 friendly desert but through downtown Baghdad. U.S. bombing aimed at neutralizing Iraq's offensive forces will surely violate just war principles of proportionality and civilian immunity. Worse, any attack will likely produce the outcome U.S. war planners propose to prevent, that is, a desperate Hussein compelled to vigorously deploy whatever chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction he does have at his disposal.

If our nation's political and military leadership have the evidence that demonstrates their right intention, let them bring it forward for everyone to see. Then let's hear from the only legitimate authority with the power to make war in our constitutional republic, the Congress, in a real debate all Americans can witness. Only then can we decide if we have moral justification to step again into the abyss of war, remembering that even if our cause is just, our actions must be merciful and virtuous, but above all else, they must be wise.

Before the Gulf War began, Pope John Paul II implored U.S. policymakers to reject the "hurried deadlines of war" and warned that the conflict would only begin "an adventure without return.., a spiral of death and violence." The U.S. and the West may be tired of trying to maintain a dialogue with a megalomaniac like Hussein, but if our only options truly are more talking or more war-making, then we must continue the path of negotiation, the path of peace.

KEVIN CLARKE, managing editor of online products at Claretian Publications in Chicago.