I have said before that there is no issue, no important development in the practical world, whether in economics, politics or science, that has not been treated in literature. Such treatment is often given ahead of its time, before the issues actually become topical. For example, debates around the extent of human cloning have only now begun to terrify the world, yet, unheeded warnings about its dangerous consequences and moral questions were the subject of fiction since Mary Shelly, H.G.Welles and George Orwell.

The war in Iraq is no exception to this. It is not very difficult to find poems which read as if they were written especially to reflect the mood, to fit the circumstances or to make specific statements about this war even though they were written decades before this particular offensive was ever hatched in the haunted brain of what E.E.Cummings calls "this busy monster manunkind". "The Embassy" by W.H.Auden is one of these poems. Even more striking is his "September 1, 1939", a poem set in Manhattan, New York, which could be easily renamed "September 11, 2001" because it sounds like the poet's response to the events of that day.

The applicability of "The Embassy" is strengthened by the fact that this is a very predictable war - meaning, it came as no surprise and it seemed as if President Bush, buoyed by the overwhelming support received for the purging of Afghanistan and the liberation of Kuwait, was determined not to allow diplomacy to get in the way of another attack on Baghdad. Ever since Afghanistan, his armies were "waiting for a verbal error / with all the instruments for causing pain".

One of the issues in this current assault on the Saddam Hussain dictatorship is the failure of diplomacy, a topic touched by Auden in the poem. The armies wait with weapons ready, and this also involves how the envoys define diplomacy. A Canadian diplomat told CNN last week that "the threat of force" is a legitimate and effective form of diplomacy. The United States and Britain could not convince their allies, who accompanied them without hesitation across the Persian Gulf in 1991 and against the Taliban in 2001, that they should join them this time. Simultaneously, these "allies" could not convince USA and UK that they should wait for further United Nations diplomacy. One of the things that won the US few friends was the fact that it had already made up its mind to advance on Saddam even before the last of bin Laden and al-Qaeda had been expunged from Afghanistan. What was worse was the United States declaring itself "the world's only super-power", who does not need friends, diplomacy or United Nations sanction to wage war.

"No matter what good they intended", the armies "waited for a verbal error".

As the poem suggests it, this verbal error could be one slight slip uttered in the diplomatic debate which could trigger off the war. But it also subtly implies that the very command to the troops to attack is itself "a verbal error" since it is a command that should never be given, and it is a command that is erroneous because the "pain", "terror" and death that follow are inexcusable.

In this way the Auden poem captures the current mood of the world where this war is concerned. Yet there is a real dilemma. There is overwhelming agreement that the likes of Saddam should not be allowed to inflict terror upon their own people and hang a threat of terrorism over the head of the world. They must be stopped.

However, all hesitate to launch a war in order to do it, and some grapple with the further dilemma of whether the downtrodden people of Iraq should not be left to determine their own internal fate, even if this means continued suffering at the spiteful hands of Saddam. Many people are not sure that they want to support the invasion of a foreign country to remove or assassinate a leader, even when this leader assumed power by illegal means. Yet, ironically, liberation of the Iraqis through a military attack is not going to be achieved without further terror, without bloodshed and pain to many. On the other hand, if the United Nations had not hesitated so long over military intervention in Rwanda and Bosnia Herzegovina, genocide and untold human suffering could have been reduced. "No matter what good they intended", the result is going to be "towns in terror", a "land laid waste" and "young men slain".

These are the kinds of reminders that have driven the European allies to follow the mood of the people of the world who feel that war is no longer a viable alternative. Now, there has always been that strong constant anti-war principle powerfully articulated in the poetry of Wilfred Owen, who, ironically, was killed in World War I. (Read, for example, his poem "Arms and the Boy".) That principle is that nothing will justify "the horror of war" (Owen's words) at any time. But it appears that, while many could support invasions for just causes on two previous occasions, the mood has shifted to the feeling that there has been enough, and further hostilities should be avoided at all costs. The mood of the world is that perhaps it is time to decide that war should not be resorted to again as a means of conflict resolution.

On the other hand, the American administration is still reacting to the savage trauma of September 11, along with the recognized necessity to protect its people from the probability of other attacks. On that issue, America has the world's sympathy; but it is also felt that America did not give diplomacy a chance, that it is setting a dangerous example of contempt for the United Nations (which seems to date back to their quarrels with former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali). Then there are those who do not trust the motives of George Bush.

There is, indeed, a dilemma. This problem, the contemporary mood and the nature of conflicts are treated by Auden in the poem. W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden (1907-1973), who was born in England and educated at Oxford University, became a US citizen in 1932 and lived in New York, despite his socialist reputation. He was one of the "Modernist" poets in the same school as Eliot, Pound, Yeats et al, incorporating into his verse the shared disenchantment with modern society. "The Embassy" articulates some of the contradictions. The poem describes the scene outside an embassy in the affluent suburbs where "highly trained" ambassadors are meeting for peace talks. But the atmosphere is very edgy since in far-off battle fields the armies are waiting and war could break out at the drop of a word.

It begins with a reference to the weather. "The day's oppression lifted" after the rain when visibility improved and far off mountain peaks, now clear of mist or fog, could be seen again. Behind this screen, however, is another layer of meaning, because the far peaks coming into focus also suggest that cloudy issues were becoming clearer and agreements were in sight. Yet the oppression that was being lifted refers only to the weather; it is "the day's" oppression that evaporates, not the hardships that continue to afflict the people. Clear lines are drawn between the people on the basis of class. The proletariat, who remain under the weight of "oppression" are represented by the chauffeur and the two gardeners who take note of the expensive shoes worn by the affluent ambassadors; shoes the working class gardeners would never be able to afford.

The marked difference between classes continues in the poem's theme of deception. The first stanza, the first eight lines of the sonnet, is charged with understatement. The very peaceful, relaxed atmosphere and cultured landscape outside the embassy are deceptive; "it seemed a picture of the private life". The high level discussion that could so easily set off a war is described as a mere "exchange of views". The death and destruction that could follow in the second stanza depends on the "charm" of the envoys. The "highly trained" in their luxurious setting are far removed from the violent action of the front line.

This will take place "far off" where the armies wait, while those who will make the decision stroll casually in expensive clothes, waited upon by chauffeurs in the picturesque suburbs. In stark contrast to that, the possibilities of painful waste are described. It is clear that Auden has created a carefully choreographed case against war, but various related issues and the dilemma that always accompanies any decision about its necessity are effectively articulated as well. The poet's socialist tendencies are also evident in a poem that is timeless; its power is felt because of its precise relevance to the issues surrounding the war in Iraq in March 2003.