There is reason for satisfaction and reason for concern in the news from Baghdad. There is also a danger that the Anglo-American approach to Iraq portends future problems, especially if all parties continue to ignore underlying, disintegrative forces in the region. PNS commentator Rami Khouri, former editor of the Jordan Times, writes a regular column from Amman.

AMMAN, JORDAN -- For the Middle East, this was a week of good news and bad news -- and hints of a clouded future.

The good news is substantial. Word from Baghdad of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's agreement with Iraq on the U.N. weapons inspection system seems likely to avert military attacks for the moment.

In addition, the Security Council has voted to significantly increase the oil-for-food arrangement and this can reduce the suffering of Iraqi citizens who, like most Middle Easterners, have no real say in their government's policies.

There is more. Annan's good work has partially restored the diplomatic role and credibility of the United Nations. The inspection system reduces any imagined or planned Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction and re-validates the United Nations as a moral conscience and peace-keeper.

The bad news this week is equally substantial. There is no guarantee that any of the agreements reached will be fully implemented or that new obstacles will not arise. The U.N.'s reputation and role were only partially restored, and then only after being pushed to the brink of irrelevance by Anglo-American arrogance and violence. That attitude -- which saw the U.S. and England favor their own interpretation of U.N. resolutions and ignore the role of the Security Council -- continues unabated, with Washington stating that it will do as it wishes if it does not like the agreement.

In addition, there was no serious attempt to address the single most important complaint among Arabs and many others, the accusation of gross double standards in implementing U.N. resolutions related to Israel and Arab states. And the tensions between U.S.-Britain and Iraq continue to be a destabilizing element in many parts of the Arab world, as shown last week in Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere.

But the most troubling dimension of the Iraq situation, in my view, is the institutionalization of what can best be called Daffy Duck Diplomacy. The U.S. government's attitude to Iraq perfectly mirrors the cartoon -- issues are defined in good guy/bad guy terms. The bad guy is really, irrevocably, incorrigibly evil, and the good guy has to beat him up because he only understands force. The bad guy keeps coming back for more because he is too stupid and/or evil to learn.

The cartoon story repeats itself with a slightly different twist every time in order to keep the audience watching. Beneath the main story line is the good guy's heroic morality and an epic will to sacrifice for the greater good.

The immediate problem with Daffy Duck Diplomacy is that it results in suffering and waste without ever resolving the underlying tension. Over the long term, the danger is that Anglo-American culture may project consumer entertainment as a way to determine the fate of other countries.

Mickey Mouse is already the world's most widely recognized character. The slow institutionalization of Daffy Duck Diplomacy as the successor to, say, the U.N. Charter or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will only lead to perpetual global resentment and tension, and probably to violence and warfare.

The complete lessons of the Iraq situation must be analyzed and digested on multiple levels, if we hope to escape from cartoon morality. If there is a pause now, we would do well to examine the following issues --

• the true threat, if any, that Iraq poses to others in this area;

• the status of weapons of mass destruction in all parts of the Middle East, including Israel, Syria, and Iran;

• the need to implement all U.N. resolutions with equal validity and determination;

• the underlying and expanding causes of tension throughout the Middle East that are unrelated to Israel, the United States or Iraq, including socio-economic disparities, political autocracy, the containment of indigenous and religious identities, and continuing fragmentation.

These inter-linked dimensions of the repeated dramas and wars of the Middle East were not seriously addressed during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990, and so they have returned -- ghost-like -- to spark this latest drama. They will return again and again if we seek refuge in the false universe of the amusing, the make-believe, and the commercially entertaining.