THE FLETCHER-STANWYK CONUNDRUM

President Bush was feeling his oats again, pumped up by his win at the United Nations over support in Iraq and by the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger was nearby. So today in California, about to fly to Japan, he spoke again about his policy of preemptive strikes on nations he perceives to be hostile.

“America is following a new strategy,” he said. “We are not waiting for further attacks. We are striking our enemies before they can strike us again.”

Some may think of this as the Hitler’s Grandfather stratagem, in which you are offered the chance to kill Hitler before he gains power and causes so much trouble and pain. You’d do it? What about killing the baby Hitler? Yes? Well, how about Hitler’s parents? How about killing Hitler’s grandfathers and grandmothers? Where would you draw the line on preemptive killing?

The United States attacked Iraq preemptively, remember, but we seem to have killed Hitler’s great-great-great-grandfather. There was no attack imminent. And we got away with it ... this time.

But there’s a problem with the Bush administration’s preemptive-strike policy, something I call the Fletcher-Stanwyk conundrum.

In Gregory McDonald’s novel “Fletch,” a decent guy named Stanwyk hires Fletch to kill him, although his plan is really to kill Fletch and make people think Fletch’s corpse is his own. When Fletch catches on, he asks Stanwyk how he could morally justify the murder. Stanwyk replies that “I have the right to kill anyone who has agreed to murder me, under any circumstances.”

The United States will attack any nation it is convinced is a threat. But, in doing so, it actually provides a preemptive justification to those countries: We say we’re ready to attack preemptively; so the nation we’re about to strike attacks us to preempt our preemptive attack. When they know we’re coming in, they no longer have any reason to hold back -- that’s why Saddam Hussein either deserves credit for restraint or audacity for some plan yet to come to fruition. Or, of course, he really wasn’t such a threat. (Hmm.)

In Bush’s mind, and the minds of many, the United States gets to do things no other nation gets to, just because it’s the United States (and you’re not). Let’s hope all those foreign leaders we may attack agree.