Politics & Power Quote by Richard Perle

Perle’s sentence is dressed as legal housekeeping, but it’s really a power move with a lawyer’s cadence. The phrasing “cannot or will not” rigs the jury: the UN is either incompetent or obstructive, and in both cases Washington is positioned as the adult in the room. Then comes the master key: “establish beyond question the legality.” That standard is impossibly high by design, because international law is built on contestation, interpretation, and politics. If legality must be “beyond question,” almost any multilateral constraint can be declared insufficient.

The most revealing word is “must.” It smuggles in necessity, the rhetorical solvent that dissolves debate. “Measures the United States must take to protect the American people” turns policy choices into moral imperatives; dissent becomes negligence. The invocation of “the American people” isn’t just patriotic filler. It’s a democratic shield for executive discretion, implying that international rules are meddling paperwork standing between leaders and their duty of care.

Context matters: this is the post-Cold War, post-9/11 neoconservative argument for a unipolar order where legitimacy flows from capability and intention, not from consensus. The UN is framed less as a forum for collective security than as a veto point. “Unashamedly and explicitly reject” is a dare, meant to normalize what would otherwise look like exceptionalism: if the rules don’t ratify American action, the rules are the problem. The subtext is blunt: sovereignty, backed by force, outranks jurisdiction.