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In daring to take military action against the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq without adequate United Nations' authorisation the United States and the United Kingdom have put at stake their legitimacy as democratic, law-abiding States. Their subsequent actions, however, may yet justify that daring.

There are times when the exigencies of a situation, whether it be on the international stage or national level or even in personal life, render laws and procedure less important than the urgency with which action must be taken.

Critics of the Anglo-American action claim that a majority in the UN Security Council have rejected Washington's argument that Council Resolution 1440 provided for military action. Critics also point out that the majority of UN membership as a whole are opposed to military action without further authorisation. Some do not see any reason for military action at all.

But if the US and the British have acted seemingly in violation of UN procedures, neither has the United Nations acted to point this out to Washington and London. Indeed, when the US and its few backers attempted to submit a further resolution that would have made military action explicitly automatic, those countries which so strongly opposed that resolution never, at any moment, submitted their own resolution that would have provided an alternative course of action to deal with the festering Iraqi problem.

Now, with the US and its few allies forging ahead in a major invasion of Iraq with much of world opinion seemingly against its military action, the United Nations has still to come up with any formal comment, except for some ad hoc remarks by the Secretary General that do not take an explicit position on the immediate issue.

There is no indication of any attempt by any country or group of countries to either convene a Security Council meeting or a General Assembly meeting on the issue, nor is there any indication of any initiative for a resolution addressing the invasion.

The behaviour of the US/UK on the one hand and the United Nations and other states on the other hand indicates the immense complexity of the situation and the ambiguity of the possible courses of action that the world community can take.

If the seemingly precipitate and certainly bloody action taken by the US and UK is questionable, so is the complete inaction of the UN in response to that action. Indeed, the failure of the UN or its officials to formally critique or at least question the invasion of Iraq may imply the acknowledgement that the military action was justifiable.

While the world community has yet to either formally condemn, question or collectively endorse the invasion of Iraq, it is still incumbent on the perpetrators of the invasion to prove by their very actions that the invasion was in the interests of the larger goals and objectives upheld by the world body.

The military onslaught on Iraq must demonstrate that it is being done solely with the interests of both the Iraqi people and the world community in mind. If the un-democratic nature of the current Baghdad regime is to be resolved then there must be unequivocal steps taken to promptly restore representative democracy and sovereignty to that tortured nation so that it can manage its own affairs and resources.

If the problem of weapons of mass destruction is to be resolved, the recovery and destruction of the any Iraqi WMD is wholly inadequate. Those States possessing the largest stockpiles of WMD must, themselves, initiate convincing action to rid themselves of this uncivilised horror.

Brave American and British soldiers and equally brave Iraqi soldiers are risking their lives and suffering death and injury as the world ponders the legitimacy of this massive violence. The subsequent political action will show whether or not their sacrifice was in vain.

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