Poll: Get on with it

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | SUPPORT for military action to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power is higher than it has been in the past six months, but Americans are getting antsy about the endless diplomatic delays.

The latest FoxNews/Opinion Dynamics survey showed that 71 percent support invading Iraq - with a new high of 54 percent strongly supporting it - but Americans want it done now.

Asked if it is "time to get it over with in Iraq," 71 percent now say yes, up from 56 percent last month. This reflects the wear and tear of uncertainty - the on-again, off-again diplomatic cycle in which we hang on every word out of Angola or Chile, and tremble at every verbal blast from Paris. By 74 percent to 21 percent, Americans now say the United States, not the United Nations, should make the final call on what action to take against Iraq - and they don't like the delay.

Americans realize an attack on Iraq will increase the chances of terror attacks at home. Some 67 percent feel an invasion of Iraq will raise the chances of terrorist attacks here - but 58 percent say that doing nothing will also make terrorist attacks more likely. Damned if we do. Damned if we don't.

But Sen. Hillary Clinton is on the wrong track in criticizing President Bush for inadequate steps to prevent terror attacks at home. Two-thirds of Americans say the federal government "is doing everything it can to prevent terrorist activity in the U.S." That's up from just over half the public a year ago - but two-thirds also believe that "homicide and suicide bombings similar to those in the Middle East will start happening in the U.S.."

Those standing in the way of prompt U.S. action can expect to suffer for it. By 57 percent to 29 percent, taxpayers (read U.N. dues-payers) feel the United Nations will have become irrelevant if it fails to enforce its resolutions requiring Iraqi disarmament. And almost half of all voters favor a boycott of French and German products.

While President Bush's job approval has risen back to 60 percent after a few unhealthy months in the mid-50s, he looks weak and without a clue as he lets himself be buffeted by the winds of the U.N. Security Council.

While the United States dithers in the United Nations, we face urgent and gathering problems in the rest of the world. North Korea grows more and more aggressive, firing off its missiles and rattling its growing nuclear capacity. Iran edges ever closer to nuclear weapons. (Is there anyone who believes that it built a nuclear power plant so that it could supplement its vast oil reserves with a little extra power?)

Iraq is a necessary step in the war on terror, but it's only one step. Yet diplomacy is stretching that step into a long plateau that gets longer and longer with each effort to gain 9 Security Council votes.

As always, the American voters have it right: 87 percent believe Iraq is lying and that it has large inventories weapons of mass destruction.

It's time to say goodbye to the U.N. and move on our own. Not just in Iraq, but for all time. The proper forum for discussion of U.S. action in concert with other nations and our allies is not the round table of the Security Council but the Oval Office in Washington.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is the author of, among others, "Power Plays: Top 20 Winning and Losing Strategies of History's Great Political Leaders" Comment by clicking here.

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