The Rule of Law Cast Adrift

Kofi Annan asks the right questions:

Suggesting that some world leaders at the coming General Assembly should set aside time for basic discussions on these issues, he said, “if we are going to make preventive action, or war, part of our response to these new threats, what are the rules?”

“Who decides?” he added. “Under what circumstances? Did what happened in Iraq constitute an exception? A precedent others can exploit? What are the rules?”

In effect, three months after President Bush warned that the United Nations might become irrelevant, the secretary general turned a traditional midsummer news conference into a stump speech on the value of international institutions in general and the United Nations in particular.

At one point, recalling the bitter dismissals of the United Nations last winter, he said, with a bare hint of satisfaction, “I did warn those who were bashing the U.N. that they had to be careful because they may need the U.N. soon.”

The answer to Annan’s questions are obvious and should be shared with the American citizenry. They are akin to language in the Bush vs Gore decision.

The doctrine of preventive war is limited to circumstances that George W. Bush sets forth, for the problem of allowing other nations to use the same rationale generally presents many complexities.

Bush decides, under whatever circumstances he wants. Iraq is not an exception, others may NOT exploit the precedent and the rules are what we say they are.

I don’t think that most people are comfortable with the idea that the US isn’t playing by any agreed upon rules. We like to see ourselves as good citizens and responsible world leaders. I doubt that many have any clue that the Bush administration has caused an international crisis with its unilateral foreign policy that observes no discernible rule of law.

And, I do not believe that Americans want to bear the cost of Bush’s military adventurism all alone, whether they favor any particular war or not. The Democrats need to make the case for multi-lateralism by hammering the fact that Bush’s go-it-alone stubbornness means that we pay the entire cost ourselves, in lives as well as money — not to mention the less quantifiable costs in credibility, cooperation and prestige.