The United Nations’ secretary general is deluding himself.

Kofi Annan sat and listened to Colin Powell as he presented photographs, audiotapes and intelligence reports bolstering the United States’ case for attacking Iraq. The presentation went a long way to proving that Iraq is deserving of invasion.

It went even further to cement President Bush’s claim that the U.S. will go forward, whether the U.N. is with her or not.

Yet Annan insists that war is “not inevitable.”

How ludicrous.

War is indeed inevitable; Powell’s presentation proved it. Regardless of whether it proved the necessity of war, the secretary of state’s appearance proved the U.S. is going anyway-come Hell, high water or the French.

Bush for a long time has been itching to remove Saddam Hussein. The dictator’s dominance of Iraq has destabilized the Middle East, threatened the world’s economy, threatened America’s allies and provided-at the very least-moral support to al-Qaeda.

America has gathered her “coalition of the willing.” Britain, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia all have promised aid of some kind.

Some countries have verbally opposed any war. But Russia needs to keep America distracted from its brutal repression of Chechen rebels. And China would like America’s help with the ever-escalating tensions in North Korea.

Other countries oppose Bush and Powell altogether, the opposition being led by France and Germany.

The latter is so afraid of repeating its deadly imperialistic history, it has turned into a hotbed of irrational pacifism.

The former is objecting more because of its resentment of America than any principled stand.

In either case, the “old Europe” opposition is withering before the “new Europe” supporters-former Eastern European countries that know how truly dangerous it is to have brutal dictators in control of a region.

Although technically war can be averted, Saddam Hussein is not going to stand before the world tomorrow and lay down all his arms and surrender.

Which means, right or wrong, Bush will bring America into war-whether Kofi Annan recognizes it or not.