| I think that pre-emption and unilateral action are two different things. In any case, in principle, ANY sovereign nation has "the unilateral right to do whatever [it] decide[s] to do," not just the U.S. It goes with the territory, all the jabber about "international law" and "supranational bodies" notwithstanding. In practice, of course, each nation is constrained - by its own population, which clearly indicates support or non-support for a course of action, or by other nations, which clearly indicate that if you do thus-and-so, we will withdraw our ambassador, cut off trade, blow you out of the water, whatever. The murkiness with Iraq arises out of the nature and level of the threat from Saddam, which will be debated for decades. But any nation has the right to unilateral action. It just has to accept the consequences. |
