Converging events are rapidly moving the Iraq crisis toward a day of reckoning. The first defining choice rests with Saddam Hussein, who must decide whether his government will comply with U.N. inspectors' demand to begin destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles by Saturday. If Hussein sticks to his stated refusal to meet that demand, he will force reluctant Security Council members such as France and Russia to confront the question of whether any provocation will prompt them to support military action to eliminate Iraq's illegal weapons programs. But if Hussein changes his mind and agrees to destroy the disputed missiles, he will force the Bush administration to confront the question of whether any Iraqi concession will slow its rush to war.

The showdown over Iraq's illegal missiles comes to a head as the Security Council begins to consider competing outlines for future action: One, a draft resolution proposed by the United States and Britain and co-sponsored by Spain, would declare that Iraq has failed to take advantage of a last chance to disarm short of war. The other, in the form of a memorandum offered by France, Germany and Russia, calls for at least four more months of weapons inspections.

The Security Council is expected to be asked to choose between these conflicting points of view within the next two weeks. In the meantime, though, Hussein can effectively make the council's decision.

To their credit, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and his team have set a hard deadline for Iraq's compliance in destroying the Al Samoud 2 missiles and have rejected Hussein's efforts to debate or delay the issue. If Hussein refuses to destroy the most significant banned weapons discovered by the inspectors, the French-German-Russia memorandum will be rendered meaningless. What would be the point of four more months of inspections when the inspectors already have shown Iraq to be guilty and unrepentant? But if Hussein complies with the inspectors' demands, the Bush administration will lose any realistic hope of winning Security Council support for its new resolution. Only three other nations in the 15-member body are solidly behind the U.S. position now. At least five are opposed, and several are undecided. Such a significant Iraqi concession surely would stiffen Security Council opposition to hasty military action.

That would put the onus back on the White House. President Bush is correct that the scores of Al Samoud 2 missiles are "just the tip of the iceberg" of Iraq's illegal weapons programs, and the threat posed by the Hussein regime will not dissipate until all of its illegal weapons are identified and destroyed. However, the identification and destruction of the Al Samoud missiles would undercut the White House's argument that the U.N. inspection process is a complete waste of time. Having achieved that success, the inspectors might reasonably ask for more time to build on it.

We believe that it is important for the world community to live up to its own repeated commitment to eliminate Iraq's illegal weapons programs. At the same time, the military, political and economic risks of going to war in Iraq in the face of broad international opposition make it important for the Bush administration to take all reasonable steps to build a broad consensus for action in Iraq, and in the broader war against terrorism.

Hussein's next decision will make the Bush administration's task much easier -- or much more difficult.

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