WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush says he hasn't made up his mind about "any of our policies in regard to Iraq." But to not attack after spending months talking about regime change is inconceivable. Unfortunately, war is not likely to be as simple and certain as he and many others seem to think.

Lots of arguments have been offered on behalf of a U.S. strike on Baghdad. For instance, that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is an evil man who has brutalized his own people.

True, but the world is full of brutal regimes that have murdered their own people. Indeed, Washington ally Turkey's treatment of its Kurds is scarcely more gentle than Iraq's Kurdish policies.