Will Europe's left back a war on Iraq?

LONDON -- In the black and white world of U.S. President George W. Bush, the European left is as soft as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is evil. And the White House seems to be as uninterested in persuading the left to back a war in Iraq as they are in negotiating with the Iraqi leader about readmitting weapons inspectors.

The Republican right may believe that pacifism is so firmly ingrained in the psyche of the left that all arguments will fall on deaf ears. But are they right to cut their losses? Maybe the strategists at the Pentagon should take a little time off from studying the politics of the Iraqi opposition and spend some time understanding their potential allies.

There was, in fact, an extraordinary turnaround in the sensitivities of the left on questions of war and peace in the 1990s. After the Cold War, baby-boomer leaders who had been brought up on a diet of protest and peace marches became the most hawkish political generation yet.