The champion of human rights is in the White House

The overthrow of Saddam is only the first phase in America's grand design for moral reconstruction in the Middle East

The moral judgements associated with war are almost always complex. This is true of even the Second World War, that most justifiable of conflicts. The West's victory required an alliance with Stalin and the enslavement of Eastern Europe.

In most wars, therefore, the anti-war camp should find it easy to construct a respectable case, even if not a conclusive one. Yet the most remarkable aspect of the forthcoming war with Iraq is that there is no respectable case against it. Some of its opponents would like to re-fight the Cold War, with America and the West losing. They at least have thought through their position. The rest are in the grip of cowardice or naivety – or both.

There are three interlinked reasons for making war on Saddam. Human rights for the Iraqi people, as cited by Tony Blair yesterday, is a powerful argument, although not a conclusive one. Saddam, alas, is not unique in his human rights abuses; of themselves, they would not provide sufficient grounds for an invasion. But an end to torture, murder and oppression in Iraq will be one of the first fruits of our victory.

So will the destruction of his weapons of mass slaughter. Hans Blix is an irrelevance, as is his resolution 1441. We already had an impeccable casus belli. Back in 1991, Saddam bound himself by treaty to destroy all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Then, the sole role envisaged for the inspectors was to supervise a steady state of disarmament. It was never intended that they should play hide and seek in a dictatorship the size of France.

But Saddam has spent 12 years flouting his obligations, thus making himself subject to sanctions, no-fly zones and air attacks. There is only one explanation for his behaviour; he is determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In his first report, Dr Blix noted that over 10,000 tons of lethal material and 30,000 delivery systems munitions remained unaccounted for. None of that had changed by Friday, nor is there any reason to believe that the inspectors had anything like a complete tally of Saddam's arsenal.

Saddam's response to all this has been cynical in the extreme. A figment of co-operation is followed by the announcement that Iraq is banning the import of WMD while the dictator sends his Ribbentrop, Tariq Aziz, to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi. What does Saddam take the West for, fools? To judge by Saturday, he has a point.

The pseudo-idealists took to the streets while the real idealist flew to Camp David. This is the third and strongest reason for supporting President George Bush's war, but also the riskiest; his idealist approach to the Middle East. The Americans intend to create a new dispensation, based on freedom, democracy and human rights. The overthrow of Saddam is only the first phase in their grand design for moral reconstruction.

The planning for this process started in late 2001. In response to 11 September, the Americans drew two conclusions. First, that conditions in the Middle East were terror-genic. There was an abiding threat to American lives, assets and interests.

The United States decided that the problem originated from the second conclusion; that all the major states in the greater Middle East were in a mess. Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Saudi, Iraq, Iran – and Pakistan despite Pervez Musharraf's best efforts – are all failed states. The Americans decided that there was a simple reason for this; the lack of democratic input. In effect, this meant that the countries' leaderships spent a great deal of national energy plus a similar proportion of national resources in holding down their peoples. As a result, those states could never develop. They were doomed to endless, sterile conflict, squandering – in the case of the oil-rich states – the money which could otherwise have been used productively. In 30 years' time, when nuclear power and the hydrogen fuel-cell lead to a collapse in the price of oil they will merely be able to look back on lost opportunities – though they will still be in a position to find a bit of cash for terrorism.

To the astonishment, no doubt, of Saturday's crowds, many thoughtful conservative Republicans would accept that America is partly to blame for all this. Because of the Cold War and the need for oil, the US was more concerned to sustain its allies in power than to scrutinise their domestic affairs. But those days are over. The Americans are determined to tackle the sources of Muslim terrorism – including friendly failed states.

This is where Europe could have had an important role, if it had not frittered away its authority in preening, posturing, adolescent anti-Americanism. Europe should have tried to temper US zeal with a qualification, and an imperative.

The qualification relates to democracy, which is not always the answer. By no means all of the peoples of the region would vote for sensible governments, and there are alternatives. In Pakistan, in desperate circumstances, President Pervez Musharraf is trying his hardest to be a non-secular Ataturk. He will either end up assassinated or the saviour of his country; he is certainly the best form of government available. So is the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, while the Sultan of Oman has been remarkably successful in harmonising modernity and Islamic culture. In Morocco too, the monarchy has played an indispensable role.

Democracy may be a desirable long-term goal, but in some cases it could be a short-term disaster. Non-oppressive traditional regimes based on broad popular consent succeed, as could benevolent military autocrats.

That is the sort of insight which comes naturally to old Europeans, as does the imperative of Palestine. A fair deal for the Palestinians will not solve all the problems of the region, but it is an essential foundation for any viable settlement. Here again, a lot of Europeans will be surprised at the amount of agreement which this proposition would receive in conservative American circles.

Last Thursday Conrad Black gave a characteristically forthright lecture that contained some robust mockery of old Europe. But he was also unenthusiastic about Ariel Sharon and insistent on the need for a Palestinian state, which must involve dismantling Israeli settlements. Such views are widely shared in Washington.

They could still do with reinforcement. It will be a long time, however, before the French and Germans receive a hearing in Washington, unless it is at a show trial. This leaves us Britons isolated, not a bad place to be when it comes to Europe. For the foreseeable future, our American allies will not be interested in diplomacy. They will merely be determined to construct coalitions of the willing.

Even those of us who find little to admire in Blair's domestic programmes may take pride in our PM's willingness to join that coalition. Even principled lefties need not necessarily disagree, for it is also a coalition of idealists.