It helps sell the bottom line, which is war with Iraq made the world safer. It did so by toppling a tyrant who is evil; a man dedicated to manufacturing biological and chemical weapons and who was desperately trying to build a nuclear bomb; a man who has used weapons of mass destruction on his neighbor and against his own citizens. (Is there any doubt he would direct them at us, if given the chance?); a man whose government funnels money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers; a man who nourishes hate and fanaticism in hopes that terrorism of the Sept. 11 variety will continue to replicate throughout the world. By toppling Saddam, we made the world safer and took the first crucial steps in engineering a new era of peace in the Middle East.

But American voters require something more. It is not enough to show that Saddam was a tyrant. The world is full of evil men. The administration desperately needs that image of uncovered weapons of mass destruction. Foreign affairs, which lack the immediacy of domestic issues, derive their legitimacy from the threat of clear and present danger. The administration understands this. That is why they sold the war with Iraq as a war to halt Saddam's weapons program. Without visual evidence to make this argument seem real, the administration will have difficulty making the case for strong action in North Korea or Iran. Every new foreign affairs agenda will be undercut by the failure to achieve visual closure in Iraq.

And that is a shame because we need to prevent North Korea from developing a cache of nuclear weapons and destabilizing the entire Asian continent. We need to liberate the citizens of Iran if we are to have any hope of achieving peace in the Middle East.

Sadly, American politics was long ago trivialized by television images. Should the administration fail to come up with the crucial image of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, their foreign affairs agenda will recede in significance, and the nation will become suddenly susceptible to the next demagogue who immerses himself in domestic issues and popular culture.

Just like in 1992.