THIS MANY PEOPLE braving the ice might be the tip of the iceberg that blocks the war in Iraq. In New York, between 100,000 and 400,000 people, depending on police or organizer counts, clogged the streets last Saturday to protest against a US invasion of Iraq. They came despite a temperature of 25 and wind chills well below that. They came despite the arctic gusts of government censorship. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his police department, and John Ashcroft's US Justice Department all ganged up in court to get a federal court order that prevented a march past the United Nations. The court order allowed the police to limit and freeze protesters in pens on First Avenue on the East Side and erect barricades to keep protesters coming from the west to join the throng. In a city that still allows massive ethnic parades (parties are OK, concern for human devastation is not), President Bush and his allies in local government won their goal of avoiding the politically embarrassing photo-op of hundreds of thousands of people marching past the symbol that Bush and the Republicans have trashed for two decades (Colin Powell inside the UN to call for war is OK, but citizens outside the UN calling for peace are not).

The attempt at icing the crowd in New York was silly compared with the rallies in Europe. In Rome, 600,000 people marched to St. John's Cathedral. In London, 750,000 people marched to Hyde Park. In Berlin, 500,000 people marched toward the Brandenberg Gate. In Spain, at least 500,000 people demonstrated in Barcelona and at least 600,000 marched in Madrid.

The London demonstration -- England is America's biggest ally for a military strike against Iraq -- was the largest political demonstration in the nation's history. The turnout at the Brandenberg Gate was the largest German political rally since World War II. The 70,000 in Amsterdam was the largest demonstration in that city since antinuclear rallies in the 1980s. The 200,000 protesters in Sydney, Australia, was that city's biggest rally since Vietnam.

Though the demonstrators in New York were denied a march and the opportunity to make a supercharged symbolic statement, there were some critical things the government could not stop. Newspaper photographs and interviews of participants revealed a broad range of Americans by color, age, religion, and profession (some even waved American flags), all urging Bush to find a peaceful solution to Saddam Hussein's weapons program.

Just when you thought the only thing apathetic Americans ventured into the cold for were football games, skiing, and Christmas shopping, the thousands of people who came to New York despite the pens and barricades created a new optimism. Surely many more would have come if it had been warmer in temperature and in welcome by a government that claims that it wants to invade Iraq for our ''freedom.''

It raises the possibility that the closer we get to war, the more Americans will march away from a first-strike war. The February polls still show that we have been convinced that an invasion is ultimately necessary. According to the New York Times/CBS poll, the CNN/USA Today poll, the ABC/Washington Post poll, the Newsweek poll, and the Fox News poll, between 63 and 70 percent of Americans favor military action, while only 23 to 34 percent are opposed.

But in the same polls, a majority of Americans have also called for patience. In the polls, between 56 and 59 percent of respondents say the United States should get approval from the UN before invading Iraq, while only between 37 to 39 percent say it is important for the United States to invade quickly, even without international support.

Those numbers mean that all the speeches by Bush and all the talk-show appearances by Secretary of State Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice out to galvanize Americans behind an invasion have only gone so far. Despite two years of declaring on so many occasions that the United States has a divine right to ignore the rest of the world, Americans are showing that we really are concerned as to how the world would view us if we were to abuse the power in a unilateral, unprovoked war.

The demonstrators were the best demonstration yet of that concern, despite the icy winds and icy reception by the government and despite the downplaying of rallies earlier this winter by several major newspapers. Bush and New York tried to pen them in, but by their numbers, the people who came to say no to war moved the nation a step closer to lassoing Bush. Bush now has to choose whether to ignore the tip of the iceberg or proceed full steam ahead, just as once did the arrogant operators of the Titanic.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company

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