Brian Mulroney in the WSJ:
Although the reality of pre-emptive action is new, so was the terrorist strike on America. What is also new is the suggestion that Security Council approval is–and has been–a sacrosanct precondition to action against a hostile state. The historical record is to the contrary. In any event, I would never have agreed to subcontract Canada’s international security decisions and our national interest to 15 members of the Security Council. This would be a surrender of national sovereignty to which I’d never consent.
In fact, a coalition of nations–including France, Germany and Canada–mounted a massive air war against Serbia a few years ago without Security Council authorization, under President Clinton’s leadership. There was no “imminence” of attack on any allied nation, nor did Serbia represent a threat to anyone outside her own borders. Why the reversal of policy when Iraq was involved, with the same nations piously insisting that Security Council approval had to be obtained before any military action could be initiated–and that the absence of any such approval had rendered illegitimate any military action against Saddam Hussein?
Read the whole thing.