On Feb. 15, between one and two million people around the world marched in support of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Of course, they didn't say that's why they marched, but a clear consequence of preventing military action against Iraq is that the "Butcher of Baghdad" remains in power, likely keeping the ability to possess weapons of mass destruction that the world community has unanimously demanded he destroy.

Certainly, many people disagree with a U.S.-led coalition strike against Iraq for perfectly justifiable and defensible reasons. Unfortunately, they chose to throw in their lot with the usual anti-American suspects for the sake of numbers alone. In so doing, they're allowing the motley crew that is the anti-globalization left-wing crowd to de-marginalize itself and attain relevance. Everybody's seen the loonies who wear sandwich boards that compare George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler; on Feb. 15, they got to ride along in parades that numbered in the hundreds of thousands in several American cities.

At best, the majority of anti-war protesters are simply disingenuous — claiming to care about the people of Iraq while steadfastly opposing a regime change which would liberate them. They called for the United States to stand down its "aggression" but didn't bear signs saying that Saddam should stand down his aggression and comply with the 17 U.N. resolutions leveled against him. And a secondary theme of the peace marches was "Free Palestine." None of them show the least concern for freeing Iraq.

Even the most benign of the demonstrators, the ones who said "Let The Inspections Work" base their beliefs on a faulty premise. First off, the inspections are clearly not working in the way they are intended. They're supposed to be there to confirm Iraq's disarmament, not hunting like bloodhounds over the 168,753 square miles of Iraqi territory to sniff out smoking guns. Second, the only reason why inspections are working at all, such as they are, is because the United States has been rattling sabers for several months. Remove the threat of war and Iraq will cease its tone of limited concessions.

This is the real flashpoint of this conflict. When Bush announced his intent to force regime change in Iraq, opponents of all kinds insisted that he should gain U.N. approval. Despite the fact that America should be under no obligation to have its national defense get rubber-stamped by a body under which Libya is the elected chair of the Human Rights Commission, Bush agreed. And Security Council Resolution 1441, which demanded Iraqi disarmament and suggested "dire consequences" for noncompliance, passed unanimously in November.

Sadly, the rally of peace-at-all-costs has strengthened so much since then that should the United States and Great Britain submit a duplicate of 1441 to the Security Council — which will likely happen this week — it will be vetoed, which means the "coalition of the willing" would face acting against U.N. mandates. Thank you very much.

The chief pain-in-the-neck is France's Jacques Chirac, who, despite acting unilaterally in the Ivory Coast and inviting Zimbabwe's brutal dictator Robert Mugabe for pâté, has still found time to cut oil deals with Iraq, tie America's hands and tell Eastern Europe and Turkey to cheese off. The U.S. has become the world's only superpower through military strength; Chirac is trying to build the European Union into a rival by flexing diplomatic muscles, which is the only strength they have. And it seems the entire nation of France enjoys Jacques-ing off over the idea of standing in America's way.

This opposition, be it in the chambers of the U.N. or on the streets of the world, all plays right into Saddam's hands. The protesters denounce America's supposed "aggression" but are oddly silent to the untold thousands of people Hussein has murdered, people in his own country and his neighbors' (and to the unilateral strikes Bill Clinton made in Iraq and Yugoslavia during his term). To them, the brutal criminal isn't Saddam Hussein, it's George W. Bush. It's America who is out for Iraqi oil, not France, whose TotalFinaElf company recently signed contracts with Iraq. It's not the "axis of evil" of Iran, Iraq and North Korea who represent the gravest threat to world peace, it's the "axis of evil" of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Meanwhile, the appeasers of the U.N. Security Council insist on Iraq's disarmament but refuse to do it with necessary force. As long as America doesn't get its way, Iraq can have its. In an interview with an Egyptian magazine in November, Saddam said this: "Time is working for us. We have to buy some more time, and the American-British coalition will disintegrate because of internal reasons and because of the pressure of public opinion in the American and British street."

For whatever reasons, good or bad, that people oppose a war with Iraq, in the end, the only person it benefits is Saddam Hussein. Should he stare down America and get them to blink — again — he'll only be stronger. The United States will emerge weaker, which is really what many, if not a majority, of the opposition wants most of all.

Mike Marchand '01 doesn't think he can knock out Mike Tyson but thinks he can at least last 50 seconds, especially if he's being paid $1 million. At the very least, he could beat Tonya Harding in a split decision. His e-mail address is Marchand.3@alumni.nd.edu.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

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