Why America is different: no matter who wins the 2004 presidential contest, serious tensions with the United Nations will persist.

• Author: Zoakos, Criton M.

In the early days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, pundits rushed to employ the Vietnam-era term "quagmire" to describe the situation on the ground. On closer inspection, the term does not apply to the situation in Iraq but rather to an unresolved double dilemma confronting the entire American political class--both parties, all branches of government, elected and appointed officials.

This double dilemma is: Which principle of international law is more important for American national security in the present global security environment, the legitimacy or the sovereignty of states? And if the legitimacy of states is more important, then who is to decide whether a state is legitimate? This is what underlies international criticism of U.S. policies and ongoing tensions between the United States and the United Nations. Moreover, it is what underlies most Democratic criticism of the Bush administration.

The presidential election campaign of 2004 is likely to settle the domestic aspect of this debate and produce a national consensus in favor of legitimacy over sovereignty. But the international debate will continue to rage as other nations will continue to uphold the UN founding principle that sovereignty tromps legitimacy.

The early sign that a domestic U.S. consensus is in the process of forming--thereby providing an eventual exit from the "quagmire"--is the publication, on October 31, of a Democratic National Security Strategy, called Progressive Internationalism, by the Democratic Leadership Council and its think-tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. Billed as the security policy that any Democratic nominee will need to win the presidency, Progressive Internationalism embraces most of Bush's policies. It supports the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it pledges to build the American military as "the world's most capable and technologically advanced." It views the war on terrorism, like the Cold War, as the struggle that is "likely to last not years, but decades." It pledges to fight terrorism and "gross human rights abuses ... if need be outside a sometimes ineffectual United Nations."

In short, no matter who wins the next presidential election, the "quagmire" will likely end and, as a result, tensions between the United States and the United Nations will persist and probably get worse.

THE END OF THE WESTPHALIAN SYSTEM

The ongoing tension between the United States and the United Nations arises from the fact that the United Nations as an...