TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2002 -- Despite the failure of the big-three broadcast networks to cover President George Bush’s address to the nation last night about Iraq, the question of whether America will act against Saddam Hussein is rapidly being settled. A high probability now exists that the US -- either through the United Nations or through a small coalition of its own allies -- will soon begin a military assault to eliminate Hussein and his ability to develop dangerous chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons. What is anything but a settled question is the extent to which Iraq’s rival and next-door neighbor, Iran, will be involved in the campaign to remove Hussein.

Indeed, the next foreign policy fight involves Iran. This was a point made in an important Los Angeles Times opinion piece on August 18 by Eli Lake, the state department correspondent for UPI. It was also the subtext of a New York Times op-ed this Saturday by reporter Frank Smyth, who covered the first Shia uprising against Hussein in 1991. Despite President Bush’s reoccuring manta -- either you’re with us or with the terrorists -- it’s still not clear how the US will deal with Iran. Lake’s piece outlines the assistance Iran has been giving to the US in its impending war with Iraq. Iran allowed two Shiite Iraqi opposition leaders to come to Washington in August to meet with other opposition leaders and Vice President Dick Cheney. Iran sponsors an opposition group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution, expected to participate in the effort to remove Hussein, and it backs the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, another group likely to be involved in the anti-Hussein effort.

Smyth’s piece, meanwhile, demonstrates why involving Iran makes sense. By his reckoning, Shia Muslims, who gravitate to Iran, represent roughly 65 percent of the population of Iraq. The Economist puts this number at closer to 54 percent of the population. In either case, a significant portion of the Iraqi population is Shia and either has sympathies toward the Islamic Republic of Iran or to the Iranians. (Though Smyth allows that that too much can be made of this because Iraqis are Arabs and Iranians are Persian -- meaning that Iranian influence among Iraq’s Shia is not a sure thing.)

Still, we can discern several key facts from both pieces. The first is that America needs some help from Iran to remove Hussein. The second is that Iran, which fought Hussein for much of the 1980s, has a significant interest in current and future events in Iraq. And the last is that Iraqi demography suggests that at least one solution to Hussein hinted at by Bush last night, an internal coup, will fail. (Bush suggested Iraqi " generals would be well advised to refuse [his] orders. " ) Because most of Hussein’s ruling clique are from the same group as he is -- most are Sunni Arab -- any new leadership that comes from this group will leave the Iranians as well as a large segment of the population unhappy.

In the current issue of the New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg has written a piece about Lebanon that cautions against what America might face even after Hussein is removed. Goldberg visited the offices of the terrorist group Hezbollah, whose walls are adorned with pictures of Iran’s deceased Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei, the country’s religious leader and real ruler of Iran. Hezbollah, which is trying to construct " mega-bombs " -- bombs can demolish entire office buildings -- receives " more than a hundred million dollars " from Iran annually and has affiliates all over the world, including Bangkok, Michigan, and North Carolina, Goldberg reports. Once an American war against Hussein begins, Goldberg suggests, Hezbollah may take the opportunity to strike at Israel with its newest weapons.

If all this sounds like a mess, it is. Still, nothing can be worse than permitting Hussein to remain in power. In any coming war with Hussein, however, the US must work to minimize Iranian mischief while striving to remove the dictator from power. One reason American policymakers should strive to establish at least a quasi-democracy in Iraq -- perhaps under Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi, who is a secular Shiite -- is that this model may be the only one that can satisfy the various ethnic groups in Iraq. As for the future of Iran and its agent, Hezbollah, the US would be wise to treat the Islamic Republic the way it did the Soviet Union during the waning days of the Cold War. Assist the opposition, promote democracy, limit the flow of funds to the Lebanese terrorists, and eventually freedom may take hold. None of it will be easy.