COLUMN LEFT : Must This Mad Dog Be Shot? : Our designated demon may be everything we say he is, but we could still try to talk.

Saddam Hussein has now played his hostage card. In every saloon, before every television screen, parlor strategists debate the logistics of rescue and the virtues of “taking out” Baghdad and the Iraqi tyrant.

For his part, Hussein no doubt remembers the importance of President Carter in Iran’s hostage-taking, forgetting that what probably deterred the United States from attacking Iran at that time was not so much concern over the hostages’ fate as uncertainty at what the Soviet Union would do. Not the least of Hussein’s miscalculations in his Kuwaiti adventure was his failure to realize that the Soviet Union was no longer a deterrent factor in possible U.S. responses to his invasion.

Every sensible person knows that the several thousand hostages can’t be “rescued” in any liberating swoop, such as the ill-fated one finally sanctioned by Carter. Their liberation will come either as the consequence of an invasion of Iraq--in which case the future of many of them is, at best, uncertain--or as one of the fruits of a negotiated settlement of the whole crisis.

Saddam Hussein is calling for negotiations, but the U.S. military buildup continues. Even though President Bush has diminished his rather undignified and schoolboyish language about Hussein, it’s pretty clear that America’s aim is Saddam’s overthrow.

It’s the nature of domestic propaganda that the designated demons of the day--most recently, Moammar Kadafi, Manuel Noriega and now Saddam Hussein--are constructed as monsters devoid not only of morality but of reason. Of course the only thing to do with a mad dog is to shoot it, a fate planned by the United States for all the gentlemen noted above.

Saddam Hussein is an immoral brute, but the U.S. government knew that perfectly well when it bolstered him to the strength that eventually launched him on the road to Kuwait. There’s no compelling evidence that he’s mad and there’s every reason--however fervid and resolute the White House’s public posture may be--to look for a solution short of bloodshed and suffering on a very large scale.

Thus far Saddam Hussein has tied an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and a draw-down of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. This was instantly rejected by Bush, a fact that does not obviate the fact that it was a rational negotiating posture.

Then there was the mystery of King Hussein’s message from Saddam to Bush. For awhile this looked as though it was going to be the most momentous communication ever to make its way to Kennebunkport. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, there was no message at all. King Hussein denied he’d brought one, President Bush denied he’d got one, President Hussein started playing his hostage card. Everyone forgot about the message.

At the end of last week the London-based Mideast Mirror reported that it had been told by a senior Jordanian official that King Hussein did indeed carry a peace proposal from Baghdad to Bush. On this account, the Iraqi president intimated to his American opposite number, via the king, that everything was negotiable--withdrawal of his troops from Kuwait, to be followed by lifting of U.N. sanctions and an end to the U.S. buildup--except the restoration of the Sabah clan in Kuwait.

There’s no proof that the story is true. But even if the king did not carry such an offer, he must have known before his arrival in Kennebunkport that America has no interest in any deals. He was kept waiting 24 hours before getting his audience with Bush, who took good care to let it be known that he was only interested in discussing the blockade of shipments to Iraq through the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Now President Bush’s public posture is one of high-toned outrage at Saddam’s flouting of international law. The sovereignty of Kuwait must be restored and the emir put back in his palace. Nothing less will do. It is impossible to listen to much of this square-jaw rhetoric without laughing. Bush’s relationship to international law is as casual and pragmatic as that of his predecessor in the White House. You can’t invade Panama in December and put on too many airs the following August.

The reality of the situation is that Washington does not care to have Iraq dominate Middle Eastern oil flows. This is not to say that it was wrong to push for U.N. sanctions against Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait. But it’s altogether another affair to try to persuade Americans that the national mission is to destroy Baghdad in order to defend gold-plated Saudi princes such as Sheik Eynani, who gambled away $17 million at the gaming tables in Cannes over the past month, thus squandering in a few evenings the price of a few of the F-16s sent to defend him.