Saddam's offer should be accepted by Western hawks as well as doves

And with one bound he was free. Saddam Hussein's announcement that Iraq will re-admit UN weapons inspectors "without conditions" has had the obvious and intended effect of dividing his enemies.

The international coalition that had, until this Machiavellian initiative, shown every sign of swinging behind President Bush in authorising military action to enforce the will of the United Nations is no longer united. The Chinese, the Russians, the French and, most importantly, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world, have been placated. There will be no war for a while as the world waits to see if Saddam is as good as his word and the inspectors are allowed to go about their business unmolested. Talk of regime change will, we hope, be more muted. Once again, Saddam has ensured his own survival – for now.

For once, the world has cause to be thankful to Saddam; this goes for American hawks as well as for more doveish Arabs and Europeans. The Iraqi dictator has acted with typical tactical shrewdness in buying this extra time and avoiding an immediate threat of war; but strategically he has embarked on a very hazardous path.

Either he will have to abandon his attempts to acquire more and better weapons of mass destruction, in which case those of us fortunate enough not to live under his rule may rest easier in our beds; or Saddam repeats his past pattern of behaviour and makes it impossible for the weapons inspectors to do their work. If this happens, he will have lost the last shreds of any defence he might have had against military action by the international community. Indeed, such a turn of events may test the patience of those most sympathetic to him, to the extent that the ultimate American goal of regime change becomes tacitly accepted by nations that refuse to consider it now.

The outcome, inevitably, will be messier than that. The Iraqi letter to the UN contains a weasel phase – "the practical arrangements necessary for the immediate resumption of inspections" – and refers at some length to "the commitment of all members of the Security Council and the United Nations to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq". It all suggests that, as so often in the past, Saddam's officials will be up to their old tricks, harassing inspectors up to a point, but not so badly that they provoke an immediate confrontation with the UN.

And therein lies the challenge for both the US and the UN. The Bush administration's hostile response risks allowing Saddam to achieve the very disunity he seeks. They should, against their better instincts, take the offer at face value, and reserve their position, so that America keeps the moral high ground and widest possible support for any eventual military intervention.

In return for that American restraint, the rest of the international community and the UN Security Council must ensure that any backsliding by Saddam is resisted. If that is done, there is no reason Saddam cannot be kept in his cage, and harmlessly so. It will not be the regime change that the zealots in the Bush administration long for, but it will end the threat.

If Saddam has bought himself time, then he has bought the West some time as well. Time to keep up the pressure by continuing the military build up; and, crucially, time for America to breathe some life into the Middle East peace process and address the source of so much of the region's, and the world's, anguish.