On Monday night President Bush formally announced that the time for diplomacy with Iraq had come to an end. He gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to pack up and leave the country. Otherwise, he said, the United States would attack "at a time of our own choosing." War may have begun by the time you read these words.

 

It seems we've been waiting for this for a long, long time. Like we"'e been standing outside some gigantic door - pushing on it, knocking with our fists, stepping back and kicking up the dust. Now that door is open. We've crossed the threshold - there's no turning back.

 

For months we've lived with threats and accusations, protests, backbiting and self-justification. Speculation has been like an electrical switch stuck in the ON position: How many will die, how much will it cost, the many forms of retaliation, revenge, blowback; who will take charge, who will profit, who will suffer. Now we're going to find out.

 

There is so much about what is happening that is unprecedented. For all the trouble it has caused us, we still don't know very much about the Middle East. Most Americans are learning about this part of the world's history, geography, its cultures, climate, religions and languages on the fly. After Sept. 11, no less an authority than the CIA had to make a public appeal for Arabic speakers. We are learning things we never imagined we would need to know.

 

Some people say this war will be like the war we won against Germany and Japan. We will rebuild Iraq, they say, the way we rebuilt those countries. But others are reminded more of Vietnam, an unpopular war that still haunts many of us. They compare the worldwide protests leading up to this war with those that occurred in the 1960s and '70s. We cling to such comparisons like shipwrecked sailors.

 

We didn't pick our fight with Germany and Japan. When we finally prevailed, we did so as the dominant power in a worldwide alliance dedicated to the defeat of rampantly aggressive totalitarian states. Today we are practically alone.

 

In the case of Vietnam, it was war, not its prospect, that launched protests. Now, while we pray for our soldiers' safety and return, we must also face the hard fact that there is no national consensus supporting the politics or policy that has put them in harm's way. After all these months of arguing over whether this war is right or wrong, we are left with one incontrovertible fact: This war is a choice.

 

Some, of course, have argued that the road to where we're at began with the attacks of Sept. 11. But there is no hard evidence to support this theory, no demonstrable connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Not even President Bush, with all the resources at his disposal and the lives of so many at stake, has been able to make anything but an inferential case along these lines. No, casting Sept. 11 as this war's Pearl Harbor won't wash.

 

Like it or not, we are in this fight not because we have been forced into it, but because the Bush Administration has decided that this is the time for it. This war has not come upon us like some malevolent act of nature. Churchill described the Second World War as "a gathering storm." We, however, do not appear to be driven by historical necessity. In justifying this action, Bush and England's Tony Blair refer to Iraq's failure to live up to sanctions imposed 12 years ago. War has been avoided since - and no clear evidence has been presented to suggest that it could not be postponed.

 

Again, the decision to go now is a choice. When governments make choices, the quality of those choices must be examined and judged. Demonstrations that, until now, have been about preventing war will soon focus on the Bush Administration's choosing war. Many will view such criticism, especially so long as the war continues, as unpatriotic. We hear voices that seem to echo from the early days of Vietnam, saying our leaders know more than we do, we have to trust their judgment. But if Vietnam taught us anything, it was that war is too important to leave solely in the hands of so-called experts whose interests may have little to do with our own.

 

People will die because of choices made in Washington, D.C. It is not disloyal to demand an explanation. Nor is it disloyal to insist we view the choice to go to war in context. Alliances that have served us well for half a century are unraveling. Millions of people in dozens of countries have taken to the streets in a remarkable show of protest. The threat of terrorist retaliation is considered high.

 

Meanwhile, here at home, we are experiencing the longest stretch of job decline since the end of World War II. Deep cuts are being proposed in federal support for Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, food stamps and other programs. Our state governments are looking at $30 billion in debt - a figure expected to reach $80 billion by the end of next year. Under these circumstances not only is it fair to keep asking why we're choosing war, it is imperative.