The link below is to Safire's column in today's New York Times. His point is to wake up the war-dissenters and paint a clear picture of the present scene- he does this with dueling scenarios:
1) if the "hawks are wrong"- millions of Iraqis will be nonetheless freed because of all the hubub
2) if the "doves are wrong"- millions of Americans may be killed by an empoweed Hussein

Safire has assisted my own thinking on the situation by revealing how the pro-war-now (note the 'now') side has simplified the situation.

Safire's reasoning is problematic on too many levels to confront fully here. It rests on such a pre-Safire-determined set of events that it is more akin to having your palm read than hearing sound reasoning.
1) what does he mean by "wrong"? the use of wrong, here, suggests the Iraq question is a yes-or-no proposition. While the White surely has tried to make it such (either you support our effort to disarm Iraq by any means or you don't)- the situation is not simple. For example, one CAN be in favor of a de-weaponized Hussein and not be in favor of unilateral U.S. invasion. In other words, one can be in favor of solid defense without favoring offense, despite Bush's assertion to the contrary.
2) Is it necessarily so that millions of Americans will be killed if we don't support war-now.
3) Is it necessarily so that the worst that can happen if we don't have war-now is the freedom of Iraqis?
Let me offer another scenario: We invade now with the support of Blair and a handful of others. With the "collateral damage" of thousands of Iraqi civilians, bombs blow up what the U.S. figures are the locales of chemical plants and so forth. But after the initial "success" and the invasion into Bahgdad begins, intelligence informs us that Hussein is no longer in Iraq. We nonetheless secure the cities and impliment our favored new leader of an Iraqi democracy. Meanwhile, Hussein has formed a massive terrorist network and plots a major attack on U.S. cities. He is beat to this destruction by Osama bin Laden, who had been able to recruit more than ever before the young zealots that hate American imperialism.
I am being far fetched with a purpose- and that is: we have no idea what the future holds. But we do know that our action as a nation has repercussions. Safire ignores that fact.
The Mourning After