COLUMN RIGHT : So, What Exactly Did We Win? : A strengthened Shiite movement is now a concern.

“War survives on Earth simply because so many people enjoy it,” H.L. Mencken wrote. “To at least nine people out of 10, it is the supreme circus of circuses, the show beyond compare.”

Mencken would have found little reason to revise this opinion in recent weeks. There can be little doubt that the war against Iraq--brought into our living rooms by television, and yet conducted at a safe distance from the home front--was enjoyed by most Americans.

Since the war’s abrupt end there has been talk of parades and a general triumphalism. Our easy victory has been widely construed as a vindication of President Bush’s decision to launch Desert Storm. Another interpretation has been overlooked: that Iraq never did constitute much of a threat to world peace in the first place. In which case the war was unnecessary.

We hear repeatedly that we beat the fourth-largest army in the world. But this does not mean fourth-best (that might be the German army, for example, or the British). The draftees of the tyrannical Saddam Hussein turned out to be reluctant warriors who had to be prodded from behind with bayonets and who later kissed the feet of advancing GIs. The surrender of a platoon of Iraqis to journalists illustrates the point.

There can be no doubt that the Iraqi threat was grossly exaggerated--not by naysayers or isolationists but by the U.S. government. “American casualties were less than 5% of the lowest prewar Pentagon estimates,” Time magazine reported. “U.S. forces had prepared 10,000 beds aboard ships and in three field hospitals to receive the wounded; only a tiny fraction were filled.” Twenty-thousand body bags had been ordered; a few more than 100 Americans were killed in combat. The war may have been the most one-sided in history.

How and why Saddam Hussein was magnified into a threat to world peace is a topic for historians. But it’s worth noting that immediately after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bush’s initial response was calm. Asked at a White House press conference on Aug. 2 if the United States would intervene militarily, Bush said he was “not contemplating such action.” Only after he flew to Colorado later that day and spoke to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher did he change his mind.

What precisely did we win as a result of this war? In his speech before Congress, President Bush said that this was a victory for “unprecedented international cooperation and diplomacy,” which is a very odd formulation. The war was a defeat for diplomacy, almost by definition, and cooperation itself cannot be a reason to send half a million troops around the globe.

“By God,” Bush had said earlier, “we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” Surely this is an insubstantial gain, a transient sensation of collective uplift. And the easy victory could lure us into further pointless conflicts.

Bush also said that this was a victory for “what is right.” There may be some truth to this, but remember that, to Bush, that refers to the right of sovereign states to be free from the external interference of other states. It is the infringed prerogatives of governments, rather than the abrogated rights of individuals, that arouse him to a fine pitch of moral indignation. In sharp contrast to his concern for the emir of Kuwait, recall his coolness to the students in Tian An Men Square. Bush’s reaction suggested that he regretted the tragedy but that the patience of his friend Deng Xiaoping had been sorely tried.

A few days after the war ended, a most unexpected benefit of victory was disclosed. Now we would enjoy more influence in the councils of OPEC, and “American officials” were said to be discussing how they might use it. Lo and behold, we might be able to persuade Saudi Arabia to cut back production if the price of crude oil sinks too low. There’s a nice irony here because it was concern about low oil prices that inspired Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in the first place.

The crushing of Saddam Hussein could certainly deliver the Iraqi people from tyranny. Bush commendably insisted that they are not our enemy, and that they (or those who survived) could derive benefits from the war. But even on this score we hear peculiar second thoughts. The Administration is now said to be worrying that Hussein might be replaced by Shiite fundamentalists. They in turn might form an alliance with Iran and so destabilize the region. This is exactly why we came to Saddam Hussein’s rescue in the 1980s. We feared that Iranian fundamentalists, if unresisted, would destabilize the region.

Does this mean that we will now be tempted to throw our support behind Saddam Hussein, lest the dreaded Islamic fanatics finally come to power and destabilize all before them? It sounds absurd, but don’t rule it out for that reason.