LOSING THE WORLD: We wonder if President George W. Bush ever worried that he might win the war but lose the world.

The universal expectation is that the United States, with the United Kingdom embedded to it, will eventually capture Baghdad and get Iraq’s Saddam Hussein dead or alive. The deciding factor is the superiority of US weapons, nothing else.

How can Saddam repel an invasion when he cannot even fly his warplanes without their being swat down even before they gain cruising speed? Or fire missiles that will only be met and destroyed by US counter-missiles?

How can Saddam and his cohorts hide from 24-hour satellite and electronic surveillance. Or find cover against bombs that pierce through massive bunkers to pulverize whatever is hidden under reinforced concrete?

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UNDESERVED RESENTMENT: But while the military outcome of the war is conceded to be a US-UK victory, the political aftermath is something else.

In his rush to start and finish a war that promised sure victory on the ground, Bush may have ignited unparalleled disapproval not only in the Arab sector but also the world at large. Even supposed allies and client-states appear disturbed by the specter of a post-war scenario of US isolation.

The polls indicate that the US public is still supporting Bush in his invasion of Iraq, but there is no discounting the possibility that something that’s not so funny may happen on Dubya’s way to Baghdad and send his ratings down.

Americans do not deserve the anger rising in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and most everywhere else, including Canada just across the US border. It is a bit early to say, but it seems that one man may have brought upon the head of America this undeserved resentment.

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UNDERDOG IMAGE: One irony is that without even trying, Saddam the hated despot had started to look like an innocent victim in light of the mounting civilian casualties in his ravaged country and his emerging image as the underdog.

The natives who we’ve been led to believe were just waiting for their American liberators are nowhere in sight. And Saddam’s fellow Arabs who have mistrusted him are grudgingly showing signs of sympathy.

This is not for love of Saddam, but their realization that after Iraq, it could be some other Arab country. In many dispatches, Iran and Syria, among a few other nations, are being mentioned as possibly next in line.

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REHAB RESPONSIBILITY: The UN Security Council hurdled yesterday a crucial question by voting unanimously to resume the food-for-oil program that had been interrupted by the war. This means that the UN may now use earnings from the sale of Iraqi oil to feed and rehabilitate Iraqis.

We understand that this UN amelioration program is apart from the so-called humanitarian aid that the US-UK tandem has insisted on shipping to Iraq for these people who had suffered through 10 years of embargo and about 10 days of the US invasion.

UN Secretary General Kofi A. Annan said earlier that looking after the non-combatants in Iraq was the responsibility of the protagonists — meaning Iraq and the US-UK coalition — and impliedly not of the UN.

This line is underscored by the fact that the US went ahead to invade Iraq in disregard of the Security Council. In plain language, the US-UK coalition caused the war damage and it better do the repair work itself.

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INVASION LEGITIMIZED?: Will the stepping in of the UN with its own aid program lend legitimacy of the unilateral US invasion abetted by the UK? Is it proper for the US-UK coalition to rain death and destruction on a nation that has not committed any act of aggression against it, then have the UN come in to mop up the damage?

With Iraqis going hungry and deprived of the usual amenities of life, there is no time to quibble about these political points. We expect the UN to just carry out with dispatch the unanimous Security Council decision.

Anyway, some hesitant council members have registered their reservation that the resumption of the oil-for-food program does not mean, to them, the legitimization of the invasion of Iraq.

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IRAQIS PAYING FOR IT: In the same spirit that we said earlier that the “humanitarian aid” shipped by the coalition to Iraq via the Gulf be stripped of any labeling as to the donors and distributed through some neutral agency like the International Red Cross (Crescent), we suggest that the source of the UN aid be made clear.

The oil-for-food goods are being bought by the resources of the Iraqi people. These are being procured with the proceeds of their oil. In short, the Iraqis are feeding and clothing themselves, through the UN program. They do not owe it to anybody but themselves.

The “humanitarian aid” is not being donated to them. It is theirs. In fact, in the proposed US-sponsored rehabilitation of post-war Iraq, many favored American firms, not Iraqis, are expected to catch the dizzying windfall.

Seen in the context of the decade-long embargo that wrought massive poverty and ill-health upon the Iraqis, the UN aid is long overdue.

There is something anomalous about some neo-colonial powers pummeling a prostrate nation, bombing it almost back to the Stone Age, then coming in with what is misrepresented as “humanitarian aid.”

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APOLOGIA: Something we cannot yet explain happened to our computer yesterday that wiped out much of our Postscript files, including the column for today. With deadline breathing down on us, we tried to reconstruct the current Postscript and came up with this hurried replacement. Sorry.