THE time for talking is over. The time for debate has passed. Dissent must, temporarily, be suspended.

The old world order has failed, and now there are 45,000 of our countrymen at war in a foreign land. We must support them. We can surely all join in wishing, hoping and praying that this is a short war with minimal bloodshed, and that they quickly emerge victorious.

Soldiers are usually sent to war when other people, and other avenues, fail. This is undoubtedly the case this time.

The most comprehensive is that of Saddam Hussein to come to terms with the consequences of his 1991 defeat. He has failed to co-operate with the weapons inspectors and he has failed to show due care and attention to his countrymen. He does deserve all that is coming to him - although his poor countrymen do not.

The United Nations has also failed. It passed 17 resolutions over 12 years ordering Saddam to disarm. And when it came to work out how it was going to enforce what, as recently as last November, was its unanimous will, it was paralysed by fear and unable to act.

It could not bring itself to pass a second resolution sanctioning military action or suggesting a plausible alternative. Belatedly, Chile proposed a 30-day deadline, but Saddam has spent more than a decade frittering away such deadlines - and still there was no idea what serious consequences Saddam would face at the end of the deadline.

This is hugely disappointing for those of us who, perhaps naively, believed that a determined and broad international consensus could force Saddam to disarm peacefully.

Tony Blair may have failed to get a second resolution, but the failure was all the UN's.

Europe, too, has failed. Where now a common defence policy? What chances now of Britain joining a common currency when we (and we are not isolated as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark and all the new eastern members are with us) have sympathies with the US while France and Germany are so deliberately antagonistic?

The US's diplomacy has failed, too. The US had global sympathy after 9/11 but has allowed it to evaporate. It had to been dragged to the UN by Mr Blair and treated it as a tiresome busybody. It has been downright offensive to those who dared to disagree, it has failed to show any contrition for the fact that many of Saddam's nastier weapons were supplied by itself. In summary, it has failed to address the really big question of 9/11: why do so many hate us?

The British Government's spin has also failed. There is no spin linking Iraq with al Qaida. There is no evidence that Iraq is an immediate threat. There is no evidence that the weapons inspectors were given enough time to complete their task.

But there is evidence that Government dossiers contained lies that the public were expected to buy. Little wonder, then, that opinion is not 100 per cent behind war.

This aside, Mr Blair himself has acted in a principled way. He has mollified George Bush, taking him to the UN. This bought Iraq precious months which Saddam frittered away. Mr Blair has also pricked Mr Bush's conscience so that there is now an Israel/Palestine peace plan.

Mr Blair has also aligned Britain with the world's one remaining superpower, and so, once the tyrant of Baghdad is defeated, we will be very influential in the rebuilding of Iraq. France, because of its obstruction, will be irrelevant.

And this future, this building of a new world order, is all important now that we have begun war.

Our troops, with our support, will prosecute the war as speedily and as humanely as a war can be fought. Then the politicians and institutions which have failed us so far have to rebuild Iraq and the international community so that post-Saddam the world is a safer place for us all. A future failure is one the world cannot countenance.

20/03/2003