WASHINGTON, DC — It may be a harsh verdict, but as soon as the first bombs dropped on Iraq on March 19, the anti-war movement’s effort to counter White House policy on Iraq became history. Turn the page. Write the epitaph.

Any doubts about this fact were erased when protests here in DC petered out during the invasion. Yes, there were a couple thousand at an April 12 rally near the White House. Yes, Chicago and San Francisco saw big crowds in the early days of the conflict. But in the wake of the quick military " victory, " mass anti-war gatherings have looked more like communal wound-lickings than actual protests. Promises that DC would be shut down when the war started fizzled in the cold drizzle that enveloped the city on the war’s very first day. One guy with a tractor protesting the end of tobacco subsidies did more to shut down the nation’s capital than all the war protests combined.

The malaise is understandable. The traditional bounce that presidents get when troops are deployed was as bouncy as ever. And the relative brevity of the hard fighting in Iraq was a welcome turn of events that slowed protest momentum. Domestic media coverage was generally unsympathetic to protesters and their message, and media outlets such as Fox News were downright jingoistic.

The fact that the same tired, scattered rhetoric has dominated anti-war events — especially at any rally sponsored by the Marxists of International ANSWER — certainly has not helped the anti-war cause. But it is also important to note that recycled cries of " No Blood for Oil " and the use of national platforms to stump for pet wedge issues did not slow the anti-war momentum before the invasion. The majority of protesters simply showed up to protest the war and tuned out the identity politics and anti-globalization messages.

So the central question remains: where do we go from here? What does the movement need to do to keep its prewar constituency active?

THERE ARE a number of roads that should not be taken by the anti-war movement as it regroups. Even if the occupation of Iraq meets expectations and forces American troops to manage chaos under the banner of keeping the " peace, " the movement cannot risk smug I-told-you-so’s.

Footage of US troops under attack from suicide bombers or besieged by Iraqi protesters would indeed demonstrate the folly and failure of the policy of President Bush’s administration. But it would also harden resolve among America’s right wing. Rhetorical piling on as US troops endure hardship is a nonstarter as an organizing tactic. More important, true patriotism requires peace advocates to offer bold solutions and not just snipe from the sidelines.

Two other tempting roads — focusing on US policy on Israel and renewing attacks on " globalization " — could lead the anti-war movement into blind alleys because both are paths to disunity. Support for Israel’s repressive tactics toward the Palestinians is a Bush-administration policy that’s supported by strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Continued focus on Israel alone will cost the movement substantial and necessary political support. And in the teeth of the Bush-Cheney recession, arguing against globalization would be worthy but quixotic, an effort that would divide key constituencies in the center and on the left.

The anti-war movement needs to look at what united those who marched in opposition to war in Iraq — activists, religious bodies, leftist and centrist Americans — and then press those points of agreement. It needs to focus on ways to isolate the Bush administration’s foreign policy from America’s political mainstream. It also needs to look for ways to extend its message into key areas where it had little penetration before the Iraq war.

One way to accomplish all three aims would be to focus on Bush’s National Security Strategy (NSS) — in particular, the policy’s doctrine of " pre-emption. " The president articulated the National Security Strategy in a number of speeches during the long build-up to the Iraq invasion. Shaped as a response to the terrorist attacks of the prior year, it was codified in a September 17, 2002, document titled " The National Security Strategy of the United States " (www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html). It promises that America " will defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers. We will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent. "

These goals sound reasonable as generalities, but the devil of Bush’s NSS is in the details. " In the new world that we have entered, " urges the document, " the only path to peace and security is the path of action. " Such action includes ripping up existing treaties to build and deploy unproven Star Wars missile-defense systems. More important, NSS makes a formal commitment to a doctrine of " pre-emption " — a notion that includes attacking countries that have not made explicit threats against the US and its allies on the suspicion that they possess weapons of mass destruction to be used against us. " As a matter of common sense and self-defense, " the NSS boldly states, " America will act against such threats before they are fully formed. "

The document also quotes extensively from a speech given by Bush at the US Military Academy at West Point, on June 1, 2002, in which he laid out in greater detail the US prerogative to use military power pre-emptively.

The United States has long maintained the option of pre-emptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction — and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively.

Here, the notion of pre-emption is stretched to mean prevention. There’s little doubt that the US would have " pre-empted " the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It would have been justified, both morally and under international law. But the Bush administration’s war against Iraq — and its threats toward Syria — are more " preventive " in nature. They address a potential threat from nations that have not attacked the US — but that might some day. That sort of attack is banned by international law and does not meet traditional standards for a " just war. "

The NSS gave two more indications of where the Bush administration was headed. It cemented the administration’s disdain for existing multilateral institutions; the document explicitly mentions " coalitions of the willing. " And it looked back longingly to an era when world politics was a game played by the " great powers, " as the NSS dubs them.

For the six months after the NSS was drafted, its policies were merely words on a page. Then the attack on Iraq came, transforming the NSS’s pre-emption policy into historical reality; although the Bush administration contends it " will not use force in all cases, " it did in its first NSS scenario. Baghdad’s rapid fall notwithstanding, the invasion proved to be everything the anti-war movement feared, with untold civilian casualties, destruction of national cultural treasures, and deepening anti-American resentment throughout the Arab world. Beyond that, threats issued by leading figures in the White House (including the president) against Syria — before the flush of victory had faded in Iraq — were a sign that using force to counter perceived threats to the US is at the top, not the bottom, of America’s foreign-policy toolbox.