John Sarbanes: “Stanley Hoffmann has pointed out it is precisely the most powerful state that has the greatest interest in links of…”

“Stanley Hoffmann has pointed out it is precisely the most powerful state that has the greatest interest in links of reciprocity, international law, and mutual restraint; that a superpower must take special care not to provoke the united resistance of lesser powers. The challenge, and it is a challenge, is to work cooperatively, through the international institutions. In doing so we join with others to register a judgment of the entire international community, and we can then use our strength to carry out this judgment of the international community, again in cooperation with others. Failure to do that, I think, is fraught with dangers for our continued leadership position in the world. It seems to me the distinction made in this amendment is a critical one. It reserves to the United States the power to act in self-defense. It provides authority to back a U.N. action and it leaves open, of course, the possibility of the President's coming back to the Congress to request an authority to act unilaterally, which would then enable us to assess the circumstances and the consequences under those circumstances of granting such an action. We have an opportunity here to achieve our ends--the destruction of this program of weapons of mass destruction, assuming that is our end--without resorting to unilateral military action, and I think that is the option we should pursue at this time.”