A LOT OF PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK that Bush’s comments last night about Iraq being a threat to the United States and its neighbors were merely policy justifications.

But they’re also laying the groundwork for justifying an attack on Iraq, even without Security Council approval, as self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Many among the international-law professoriate will opine that this isn’t enough — but that’s only one opinion, and one that has little credibility given that the organizing principle of the international-law professoriate and commentariat sometimes seems to be “whatever the United States wants to do is against the law.”

Bush seems to be trying very hard — harder, I think, than I would in his place — to preserve the viability of the United Nations. I’m not sure why, but I am sure that he will get scant credit for it.