MAD, which stands for “mutually assured destruction,” is the strategic system that held the United States and the Soviet Union in an edgy but peaceful nuclear standoff for half a century. Each side was certain that if it fired its nukes first the other side would fire its own nukes and both countries would go down in a nuclear holocaust. Some analysts are asking why won’t MAD work with Saddam Hussein, instead of the war that the Pentagon and the Bush White House are planning?

What is so special about Saddam? Like the Soviet leaders, he is evil and expansionist and may hate the United States. Like them, he has weapons of mass destruction. Finally, like the Soviet leaders, he is a survivor and knows how much he and his country would lose in a nuclear war.

But what if Saddam hands over chemical weapons like nerve gas, which he already has, or the nuclear weapons he is working to develop, to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups? They would have no national identity to risk and would not be deterred by MAD. An answer is that U.S. intelligence might detect such a weapons transfer. If the transfer went undetected, and if a terrorist group used these weapons against the United States, Saddam would know that he would be the known source and would face catastrophic U.S. nuclear retaliation.

This reasoning is highly controversial. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has testified that MAD no longer works in a world with a half-dozen nuclear powers. Republican strategists in the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations, hate MAD because it seems to make unnecessary their dream of a protective shield that would enable the United to fire off its nukes without fear of a successful nuclear counterstrike.

Still, MAD offers a third alternative to the uneasy choice that is being presented by the present administration. The first is a military attack against Iraq, the subject of a devastating criticism by Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush’s national security adviser, in The Wall Street Journal. He argued that there has yet to be evidence that Saddam had any connection with the Sept. 11 attacks or is assisting al-Qaida. He warned that a war against Iraq, besides being long and costly, would destroy the anti-terrorist coalition and destroy the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

The second choice offered by some in the administration is an ultimatum to Saddam to readmit international weapons inspectors without conditions, which he has already rejected.

If the third course is working, why abandon it?