On Iraq a US retreat is at hand

On Iraq, a US retreat is at hand.And what about the UN itself? An outburst from Congress about the unacceptability of "subcontracting" US foreign policy to so suspect a body was short-lived. It is whispered even that UN inspectors may not find any more weapons: in which case, the less war-mongering the better. US troops are still in the Gulf, on alert, but little is heard about them now and their numbers could soon be reduced. The New Year belligerence from Washington which suggested Iraq was ready to poison the world with anthrax, VX and other unspeakable substances, has faded to silence. Not only were Americans more interested in Paula-Kathleen-Monica, so, it seems, were their elected representatives.And what of Iraq, the bogey of US foreign policy for the best part of a decade? Since the eleventh-hour agreement on weapons inspections clinched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan four weeks ago, US officials have been strangely quiet. Senators were thought reluctant to commit more money to Europe. They were worried, we were told, about the cost of admitting new members, the dilution of Nato's military preparedness and the risk of offending Russia.In the event, Nato expansion cleared the crucial Senate foreign relations committee with barely a murmur against.

Last week, it started its passage, almost unhindered, through the Senate. Just a few weeks ago, Nato expansion was seen as President Clinton's big political battleground for 1998. The mood of the Republican-majority Congress was considered threateningly isolationist. In a nod to domestic hardliners, Washington will maintain its economic embargo and its Helms-Burton law requiring sanctions against third parties doing business with Cuba - but what price such grandstanding once food and medicine from the United States are exempt?This week, despite a last-minute hiccough, the US Senate could approve the expansion of Nato to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, after only a few hours of low-key debate. The US will now work to undermine Castro's rule by making Cuban life better.There will be more money from abroad, more medicine, thanks to a reduction in red tape, and more food, through new export arrangements. For years, Washington has aimed to bring about the demise of Fidel Castro by squeezing his people until they rebelled.

Last week, thanks in part to the mediation of Pope John Paul II, that policy was abandoned. Maybe they are all having such a rip- roaring time frolicking in the ongoing soap opera of risk, gossip and innuendo, that they have failed to spot something much more important: the great American ship of state is being slowly turned and redirected, almost unopposed. Consider the following. Last Friday, the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, with President Clinton's blessing, announced a sharp change in policy towards Cuba, the last remaining Communist country in the western hemisphere, and a perpetual irritant to the United States. Perhaps it is not the President who has been distracted by Paula- Monica-Kathleen et al, after all, but the US political and media establishment, with public opinion not far behind. But with the White House now decamped to Africa for almost two weeks and the mist of sex allegations starting to clear, the joke may be on America. No less an authority than Watergate hero Bob Woodward and his Washington Post colleague and Clinton biographer, David Maraniss, have made the case So it must be true. Or even - listen to the Tory citadels tremble - like Jeffrey Archer?.