President Clinton's probable escape from his domestic pursuers can be ascribed in part to his foes' astonishing folly. He has been lucky in his enemies: the sex-crazed, mealy-mouthed Kenneth Starr and his backers on the Christian Right, who remind us that `fundamentalism' is a term born in the United States; Newt Gingrich, who overplayed a winning hand and lost his shirt; and Linda Tripp, the wicked witch of the wire who, like Nixon, did not understand that by bugging herself shewould only prove her own villainy, even with the expletives deleted.

When an ancient force -- puritanical fanaticism -- combines with the contemporary tabloid dogma that public figures have no right to privacy, and when the Washington political and media elites work themselves up into a mighty pompous froth, even the President rocks on his throne.

But Clinton survives, because he has human nature on his side. Human nature distinguishes between sexual dalliance and political misconduct. It can be brutal: asked to take a view about Monica and Paula, the American people replied that they just did not care. They have come to know Clinton far more intimately than they normally know their leaders and he, of course, has always known them better than any other politician. Clinton is winning his fight because he is like his people -- because, you could say, he is a natural.

In the matter of Iraq, however, the US administration's understanding of human nature has been deficient, to say the least. The notion thatbombing raids might provoke a coup against Saddam was always an improbable hypothesis. On the whole, people do not see as allies those who are dropping large quantities of high explosives on them from the sky. Like Yossarian, the hero of Catch 22, they take the bombs personally. Threatening to bomb and then not bombing has the advantage of killing fewer people but the disadvantage of making one look silly.

Apparently, some Iraqis seriously believe Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky were pawns in an international Zionist conspiracy designed to make Clinton bomb Baghdad. The recent aborted American-British attack may demonstrate the declining international influence of these two ladies but otherwise plays right into Saddam's hands.

Those voices advocating a rapid end to sanctions and an opening up of the Iraqi market to western goods and ideas may not find much favour with America's military analysts, but an Iraq freed from the privations of the embargo and threat of aerial attack is more likely tothink of the West as a friend. The best way to topple Saddam may be to help bring into being an Iraq in which his tyrannies are not only hateful but also anachronistic.

The case of the month's other `unnatural' figure ought to be getting easier. Pinochet, after all, has earned the right to be called the most evil man now alive on Earth (sorry, Saddam). The British law lords have decreed he is not immune from extradition. The crucial principle of universal accountability has thus been upheld. Atrocity is not to be excused by the occupancy of high office. All this has become clear in recent days.

Why, then, has the Home Secretary asked for extra time to decide Pinochet's future? The ex-tyrant was well enough to hang out with Lady Thatcher the other day, but now claims that the pressure he is under has provoked a stress-related ailment. The families of the dead must be disgusted by this ruse. Pinochet must not escape on such flimsy `compassionate' grounds. Jack Straw should confirm at once that for the massmurderers of the world, there can be no compassion. ``Human nature exists, and it is both deep and highly structured,'' writes Edward O. Wilson, the biologist and writer whom Tom Wolfe calls ``a new Darwin''. If it did not exist, let us be clear, then the idea of universals -- human rights, moral principles, international law -- would have no legitimacy.

It is the fact of our common humanity that allows most of us to forgive Bill Clinton his faults, that will not allow us to agree that bombing innocent Iraqis is the right way to punish Saddam, and that makes us want to see Pinochet brought to justice. A world that hounded Clinton but turned a blind eye to Pinochet would indeed be a world turned upside-down.

The Observer News Service