The Dangers of Unilateralism

The problem I am concerned with is not just the disconnect between advocating the use of cooperative, peaceful resolution of differences to foreign governments while unilaterally waging a war of aggression against them, but why President George Bush, as the leader of a democratic republic, does not feel constrained from pursuing unilateral actions as deliberate public policy. To demonstrate how his stance reflects the lack of a broad democratic sensibility in the United States, I begin unearthing public perceptions of unilateralism and its antithesis; namely, sympathetic understanding and cooperative action, which Jane Addams, W.E.B. DuBois, and other pragmatists argue are the necessary expressions of a democratic way of life. I will therefore focus on the public press rather than academic journals and on the earlier phase of the war in Iraq when the United States both acted unilaterally and defended its right not to cooperate with other nations.