THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION drew a line in the sand this fall and declared that Iraq had to come clean when it submitted its declaration to the United Nations on its weapons programs. Iraq, in its report, manifestly did not do that. The administration has responded, though, in a curious fashion - by drawing another line in the sand, farther down the road.

Retreating like that would seem to be a poor way of handling the whole Iraq issue, except that the original line in the sand was a bad idea to begin with. By talking tough, the White House may have been trying to bluff Saddam Hussein into filing an honest declaration, but no one could have been too surprised when he didn't. And now Washington finds itself at what it seemed to be portraying as a deadline - without all its ducks in a row.

So the buildup of pressure and troops and diplomatic maneuvering continues. The new deadline is Jan. 27, when U.N. inspectors are to issue a report about Iraqi compliance. From what Hans Blix, the chief of the inspectors, said at the United Nations last week, it will require a major change of heart - or of tactics, anyway - on Mr. Hussein's part for that report to be anything but damning.

Between now and then, the major question that America's allies will be pondering is this: Are they, and the United Nations, engaged in a dynamic process, in which the outcome is not foreordained, or is Washington going through the motions until such time as it is ready to attack?

Last week, the State Department declared that the deficiencies in Iraq's report were a "material breach" of U.N. resolutions, which would be a cause for war. The other members of the Security Council, especially France and Russia, didn't quite see it that way. On Friday, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, told his troops to get ready for combat. There's nothing very surprising about any of this.

What's wanted is an indication from the White House that it has the patience to see this thing through. In other words, that the whole U.N.-inspector-diplomacy effort could yet achieve a breakthrough and a defanging of Iraq if it is pursued in good faith, though it might take time. If other countries believe that the White House believes this, then they will be more likely to join in if the effort fails and it comes to war.

The waffling over the lines in the sand could be seen as an encouraging note, because it suggests the absence of a hard-and-fast agenda.

"It is still up to Iraq to determine how its disarmament will happen," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday. The rest of the world hopes he meant it.