Because of my desire to ramp up other areas of my life I had suspended effort on Strays. But tonight, evidently, we will hear we are going to war, and I have to put something down. I want some sense of how good my read was at the time, not in retrospect.

It seems to me there are two general themes of objection.

One is timing. Don't do this yet. Mass troops on the border, beef up the inspector corps, keep him in a box, and use this as a way to disarm. And so avoid a war.

I am drawn to this, but I think I understand the other side. This process would go on indefinitely, and political support (what's left of it) would only erode. Eventually the troops would be brought home, and we could never muster the international (especially Arab) support, or the domestic will, to go back. Once the troops are gone, whether or not he builds a bomb in the meantime, he will build one again.

The other theme is no-war. We just don't have the right to launch a "pre-emptive" war, even if Saddam is cheating on WMD. We have to wait for a much more overt threat - perhaps direct evidence that he has armed the terrorists.

The conventional answer to this one, of course, is that with this position we could wind up with a nuclear explosion on US soil, and begin from there.

And there are so many other ideas swirling around. On the left, blood for oil. US neo-imperialism. Bush is a religious zealot. On the right - or at least at the White House - a desperate mission to avoid another 9/11. Saddam will develop nuclear weapons once he is left to do so, and he sure looks healthy enough to be around for another 15 years. A mission to democratize the Arab world, as a way to address radical Islamism. And the way to a democratic and peaceful Palestine is through Baghdad.

The biggest swirl is that this is a gamble. The White House believes – Cheney comes right out and says it – that we will prove there were hidden WMD, possibly at the cost of American lives. The Iraqis will welcome us as liberators. Many fewer Iraqi lives will be lost with this war than with continuing containment of Saddam. The resulting federation of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds will be in an Iraqi democracy. What happens if all of this, or any of it, turns out untrue?

Where I come down is this.

1. As to timing, how can one possibly fine-tune the timing if the stakes are a nuclear explosion here, at home. If we could have waited another year, so what. As to no-war, same thing: the stakes are too high.

2. Bush isn’t his father’s son when it comes to mobilizing world opinion. Here I am not impressed. But he appears to be his mother’s son when it comes to believing in right and wrong and knowing the difference. Here, I am impressed, even a little envious. I fear I would be susceptible to a Clintonian on-the-one-hand-on-the-other non-decision.

3. As to the gamble, I can only look to what is superior knowledge, based on good intelligence. Bush and Cheney and Powell would not gamble if they thought the odds were too long. OK: It is a punt to say, well, if they turn out to be right, I’m for them. But my lack of their knowledge makes that position not ridiculous. My position as a citizen does depend, however, on my perception of their judgment.

4. I resist the notion that patriotism compels one judgment or another. On this one, patriots can go either way.

This is not a referendum on Bush. It is a question of whether to go to war now. I think, sooner or later, no matter how well the diplomacy and politics were handled, we would have this decision before us. The troops are there. We go.