Appeasement is a loaded word, especially when it is used in regard to France and Germany. But no other term can properly describe the Franco-German policy on Iraq.

That policy was laid down this week by French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Standing together in the historically resonant site of Versailles, they made it clear they do not believe in a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Their stand exposed a gaping breach among the world's major democracies about what to do about Iraq. The United States and Britain believe force should be used, if necessary and as a last resort, to disarm Mr. Hussein. France and Germany do not. "War is always the admission of defeat," Mr. Chirac said on Wednesday. "And hence everything must be done to avoid it." The day before, Mr. Schroeder said: "Don't expect Germany to approve a resolution legitimizing war. Don't expect it."

A distaste for war is understandable in two countries that have suffered so much from its horrors. But if the French and the Germans understand the dangers of war, they should also understand the dangers of failing to confront tyrants when there is still time. A Saddam Hussein armed with weapons of mass murder would be a threat to the whole world.

If war is not the way to stop him, what is? France and Germany have no good answer.

Last fall, France helped draw up a resolution at the United Nations Security Council threatening Iraq with "serious consequences" unless it took "immediate" steps to disarm. Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, will tell the Security Council on Monday whether he thinks Iraq is complying. But it is already clear it is not.

Even before the inspections began, Baghdad said they were pointless because it did not have any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Then came a 12,000-page brief that was supposed to be a final disclosure of Iraq's arsenal but was, instead, a long-winded reiteration of old lies. The discovery of 12 undeclared chemical warheads was just another indication of Iraq's duplicity.

If the UN's will is to mean anything, then the "serious consequences" called for in Resolution 1441 should follow. But France and Germany say war is not what is meant by that phrase. What does it mean? If war is the wrong punishment for Iraq's defiance, what is the right one?

Again, France and Germany are silent. War, they argue, would be bloody, risky and destabilizing. They would prefer the inspections to continue in hopes that Iraq will somehow come to its senses and disarm peacefully.

That would make sense if this were 1993 and inspections had not been tried. But they have. UN inspectors combed Iraq for years in the 1990s, until Mr. Hussein forced them out in 1998. Iraq continued to work on weapons of mass murder. By 1994, we later discovered, its nuclear program was bigger than it had been before the Persian Gulf war. Well into the mid-1990s, it was building up its ballistic missiles and developing chemical and biological agents.

There is no reason to think that inspections will magically start to work now, especially if key UN members such as France and Germany undercut the threat of force that brought the inspectors back to Iraq in the first place. Yet, incredibly, the French insist they are already a roaring success. "Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen," French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Monday.

The French regard themselves as the ultimate foreign policy realists, who see the world as it is rather than as it should be. Yet when it comes to Iraq, they act as babes in the woods. A grown-up country does not just take potshots at the other guy's plan; it comes up with one of its own. If Mr. Chirac and Mr. Schroeder are serious about disarming Iraq, what do they propose?

Inspections have been tried. So have economic sanctions. So has every kind of diplomatic and political pressure. What, short of force, is left?

The Franco-German non-plan puts them in the same camp as the anti-American peace movement, which claims to loathe Mr. Hussein but has nothing to say about what to do about him — except that what Washington is doing is wrong. "I would love to see Saddam's downfall," says John le Carré, "just not on Bush's terms." All right, then, on what terms?

Unless France and Germany can come up with a meaningful answer, the United States and Britain will be fully justified in confronting Iraq on their own.