Full speech (as prepared) at:
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-09gore-speech.html(A link to the audio version is also available at the site)
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We have faced such a choice before at the end of the Second World War; America's power in comparison to the rest of the world was if anything greater than it is now. The temptation was to use that power to assure ourselves that there would be no competitor and no threat to our security for the foreseeable future. The choice we made however was to become a co-founder of what we now think of as the post-war era, an era that began in San Francisco, an era based on the concepts of collective security and defense, manifested first of all in the United Nations. Through all the dangerous years that followed, when we understood that the defense of freedom required the readiness to put the existence of the nation itself into the balance, we've never abandoned our belief that what we were struggling to achieve was not bounded by our physical security, but extended to the unmet hopes of humankind.
The issue before us is whether we now face circumstances so dire and so novel that we must choose one objective over another. It is reasonable to conclude that we face a very serious problem in Iraq. But is a general doctrine of preemption based on a theory that would overturn the international law and the structure that has existed since our victory in WWII? Is that necessary? No. I believe not. Does Saddam Hussein present an imminent threat to the United States? And if he did, would the United States be free to act without international permission? If he presents an imminent threat we would be free to act under generally accepted understandings of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which reserves to states the right to act in self-defense. If he does not present an imminent threat, then is it justifiable for the administration to be seeking by every means to precipitate an immediate confrontation, to find a cause for war and to launch an attack? There is a case to be made that further delay only works to Saddam Hussein's advantage, and the clock should be seen to have been running on the issue of compliance for a decade, therefore not needing to be reset again to the starting point. But to the extent that we have any concern about international support, whether for its political or material value or for its necessity in winning the war against terrorism, hurrying the process could be costly. Even those who now agree that Saddam Hussein must go may divide deeply over the wisdom of presenting the United States as impatient for war.
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