The tenor of the condemnation by advocates of peace of the leaders of the US/UK alliance has been too personalised, intense, and yes, violent, to be accepted as genuine pacifism. It is an odd brand of pacifism that uses cans of red paint.
Although there is some side-stepping with regard to Mr Blair, it is clear that many of those who oppose the war have stronger feelings against George Bush than against Saddam. People expect me to agree with them when they fulminate about Mr Bush's "madness", "stupidity" or bad English. When I shake my head they begin to shake all over.
There are behind the pacifist rhetoric, then, some more profound feelings: rage, for instance, and fear.
The fear I wrote about before is knowing that we in the West are dealing with the greatest threat we have ever faced. This often happens with attempts to deal with bullies. When the brave stand up and say "Enough", less valiant souls shrink back and plead: " Go easy."
The rage is interesting also. There are, clearly, elements within the anti-war movement intent upon exploiting the situation to promote their own agendas.
There is also a huge amount of genuine sentiment, mainly emanating from the young, or at least reflecting a youthful viewpoint based on idealism and hope.
However, mixed in with this idealism is something else: an almost hysterical repudiation of rule by principle rather than populism.
In our media-saturated age, we are moving towards government by phone-in talk show and anyone who would draw lines in land or sand is to be condemned as a dictator.
Even the presence in the equation of a real dictator does not quell those who suggest equivalence between Blair/Bush and Saddam.
The only answer to such logic is to say that if Clare Short and Robin Cook had been ministers of the Iraqi government, they would both be dead now.
The most persuasive argument for action against Iraq was articulated by Mr Blair in his televised address on the night after the first wave of bombing.
"The threat to Britain today is not that of my father's generation," he said. Instantly, we must know what he meant.
Those who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War had a sense of the moral climate of that conflict. Nuclear weapons were to be used only as a response to their prior use. First use was illegal and understood by both sides to be morally wrong.
Moreover, the concept of mutual deterrence provided a reasonable degree of security in the West based on the idea that fear of retaliation in kind would prevent our enemies from using the technology they were known to possess. This mutual fear enabled the world to avoid an apocalypse. These conditions do not exist with the new global enmities and global conflict is accordingly changed. Mr Blair spelt out broadly the altered conditions in which we now live, pitted against a culture, or at least a significant part of one, which does not share our values or perceptions.
Whether that culture is justified in its repudiation of the - in its eyes - morally degenerate West is an interesting philosophical question. But the answer, whatever it is, will not save us or our children from the almost certain consequences of this antagonism.
Moreover, within that world there exists a cultural perception about the very meaning of life, which undermines any hope of a co-existence based on mutual deterrence.
The reality suggested by suicide bombers willing to destroy themselves while destroying the perceived enemies of Islam renders impossible a Cold War-style stand-off. September 11th left the matter beyond doubt: if the West did not eliminate its enemies, they would eliminate the West.
The combination of suicide-bombers, profound hatred and actual weaponry of mass destruction amounts no longer to a mere political problem: it threatens the end of the world.
The idea, therefore, implicit in both the anti-war rhetoric and UN procrastination, that the West must wait to be sure of its facts, is like advocating a check for live wires using a moistened finger.
There is a stark choice for those who live in the West, speak English and have white skin: we can join with America and Britain or take our chances alone. The anti-war movement pleads from a time-warp, with a logic belonging to the last century. It is, in a way, encouraging that people still care enough to protest.
But Mr Blair and Mr Bush are right to ignore the protests to the extent that they do. For the first time in a generation, the West has leaders prepared to do what they know to be right even at the expense of personal or political popularity.
They, not the protesters, have responsibility for protecting America and Europe from the attentions of its sworn enemies, and they alone would be blamed if they failed to act in time.