Neither bombing presidential palaces nor starving Iraqi citizens has forced Saddam Hussein closer during the last eight years to leaving or being removed from office. A man who seems not to care about his people easily deflects sanctions and missiles. If the White House is ever going to be able to declare victory, it will need a new long-term commitment to, first, containing Iraq’s weapons-building program and, second, to encouraging the eventual development of an organized democratic opposition.

This is a war of attrition: Will international patience or Iraqi weapons give out first? Given sufficient distractions in Eastern Europe or Central Africa, the answer is frustratingly obvious. The United States will find other issues until Saddam Hussein forces the next crisis. Then President Clinton, or perhaps his successor, will spend time trying to explain why U.S. missiles can be launched at such a great rate and yet to so little effect.

The latest mission, the administration said, was not to erradicate the Iraqi president or his weapons, but merely to degrade them — a modest goal for a president who has redefined the phrase. President Clinton declared the mission a success though most of the targets apparently were missed and Saddam Hussein seemed on television as defiant as ever.

The U.S. decision to proceed with Great Britain in its attack but without wider international support may work well once, but repeated unilateral or near unilateral tactics will eventually provoke stronger protest within the U.N. Security Council, not to mention the wider Arab world.

The path for the United States begins with a step back, back to reinstituting an agressive weapons inspection program, of being less concerned with Saddam Hussein’s immediate departure and more concerned with what sort of government would follow him. State Department officials have been candid enough to say that, at least for now, they have little idea who would fill that void.

The risk of increased military strikes now to wipe out the Iraqi president is that someone equally or more destructive will take his place. For a region that has regularly eluded U.S. understanding, that could hardly be considered a successful end to this protracted conflict.