ON September 3, the Gulf region blew up once again. President Saddam Hussein's military push into northern Iraq in late August, in aid of a Kurdish faction, provided the US the grand excuse for raining down Tomahawks and conventional air-launched cruise missiles on targets in southern Iraq. Barring the players and the scene of the drama, the strike against Iraq had little in common with the sequence of events during the Gulf War. It was natural that the unilateral action ordered against Iraq by President Bill Clinton seized the attention of the international community.