U.N. Approves Military Action Against Iraq

In announcing his offer of high-level meetings with Iraq, President Bush again refused to link the gulf crisis with a broader Middle East settlement covering Israeli occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories.

If full Iraqi compliance with all U.N. resolutions regarding occupied Kuwait could be peacefully obtained in return for an American commitment to ensure Israeli compliance with the U.N. resolutions regarding the Arab lands it occupies, as Iraq has strongly hinted, would President Bush really prefer war?

If he does prefer war to a consistent application of international law and a consistent respect for U.N. resolutions, he should explain to the American people and the rest of mankind the basis for his choice. The argument that an evil act cannot be permitted to produce a good result is simply not acceptable.

JOHN V. WHITBECK, Paris, France