Who are the world's most long-lived dictators? Top of the list is Fidel Castro, who came to power when Macmillan was the British prime minister and Eisenhower the American president. Then there is Colonel Gaddafi, who dates back to the age of Harold Wilson and Richard Nixon. And, of course, Saddam Hussein, who became Iraq's leader just after Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street, when Ronald Reagan was still a presidential hopeful. What these regimes have in common is that the Americans have tried to overthrow them: through bombing or economic sanctions or attempted assassination or support for insurrection or any other wheezes dreamt up by the CIA. Nor should we forget other targets of American hostility, such as Iran and North Korea, where an apostolic succession has been maintained or, indeed, China, which once, as far as Washington was concerned, did not exist at all.

The US, then, the most dominant military power in human history, has proved less capable of imposing its will than any of the European imperialists of the 19th century. Its leaders issue their ultimatums, launch their bombers, clench their jaws and rattle their missiles; all to no avail. The logic of their loathing for Saddam Hussein is that they invade Iraq, occupy Baghdad and install a puppet regime. Perhaps it would be better if they did. But they will not, partly because they fear another Vietnam, partly because they fear the break-up of Iraq (the break-up of a state being always assumed by the leaders of other states to be a Bad Thing). So we have a series of absurdities. The absurdity of economic sanctions, which cause 250-300 Iraqis a day to die of starvation and disease, while Saddam, his family and many of his ruling tribe continue to wallow in luxury. The absurdity of the bombing threats, which serve only to strengthen Saddam's self-appointed status as national hero and defender of his people. And the biggest absurdity of all: the UN Security Council Official Monitors (Unscom) inspections, resumed again this week.

Unscom is at the heart of the American dream for Iraq: a Saddam who is strong enough to retain power over his own people (anarchy being, in the American view, worse) but far too weak to threaten anybody else. But the whole Unscom exercise is quite futile. How long is it supposed to take to declare Iraq a weapons-free zone? The team has already been working for more than seven years. We hear periodically that they are "months away" from completing their task. Like the hare trying to catch up with the tortoise in Zeno's paradox, we never seem to reach the end.

Unscom could easily spend the next century looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This is because it is searching not just for weapons ready for use, but also for the ability to manufacture them. It is looking for agents, components, chemicals, tools, instruments; and it is inspecting civilian as well as military sites, including breweries, pharmaceutical factories, fertiliser and pesticide plants, even hospitals. It is concerned with what Iraq actually has and with what it could potentially have.

But there is no accounting for potential. Unscom can never be in a position to declare that there is not a single gram of material left in Iraq that could be used for the later production of weapons. It is quite easy to hide small quantities of biological substances. And even if Unscom totally destroyed Iraq's research, development and manufacturing capacity, the country has the expertise to start afresh and regain lost ground rapidly. It is not as if it is particularly difficult to produce chemical and biological agents. You can almost grow nasty bacteria on a dish in your kitchen, or knock out some poisonous gas in your garage, with the basic techniques and sources of supply readily available from the Internet.

The truth is that America has no policy for Iraq or, at best, one that dare not speak its name. What it desperately needs is a united and democratically minded Iraqi opposition, with some realistic prospect of marshalling popular support against Saddam. Alas, there is no sign of any such development and the $98 million announced in aid this week will most likely be spent on internal battles within the fragmented opposition. The US has boxed itself into a corner where, sooner or later, it must announce that Iraq's weapon-making capacities are destroyed (if that is true or not) and sanctions can thus be lifted. Perhaps that was the idea of the bombing: to end the whole business on an upbeat note. Now, the White House will be compelled to invent some unconvincing triumph for the Unscom mission. Thus, what began as farce will end as farce.

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