The naked empire.

• Position: Comment

These are the days of empire. Unrivaled and untrammeled, the United States bestrides the globe like a colossus. The President of the United States, endowed with more power than Alexander the Great and Napoleon combined, can now wreak havoc at his whim and leisure. President Bush sits upon Zeus's throne and treats Congress, the United Nations, and U.S. allies as mere vassals.

Disdainful of international law, dismissive of the U.N. Charter, the Bush Administration has thrown off the cloak of diplomacy and the ill-fitting garb of legality and is content now simply to flex its muscles and let everyone else cower.

At an hour Bush alone appoints, this jejune man will decide the fate of thousands upon thousands of innocent people in Iraq.

War is his plaything, the world his playpen.

Ours is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. But particularly in matters of war and peace, that system has shattered. Congress, which is granted sole power in the Constitution to declare war and to call forth the militia to "suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," has abdicated. It has pawned off its war powers to the President, who has been more than willing to accept them at discount value.

The resolution of force authorization that is sailing through both houses would grant to the President the right "to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

This is a war writ unlike any other delivered to a President. The unofficial tide: "Go to Town." It leaves it entirely up to the President to decide if and when he wishes to take the United States to war. It gives him the latitude to do so without getting the approval of the U.N. Security Council, without giving U.N. inspectors an opportunity to conduct their searches in Iraq, and without a precipitating act of war from Saddam Hussein.

In a moment of pusillanimity, Dick Gephardt, the leading Democrat in the House of Representatives, threw his support behind Bush's warmaking. Undermining those in his party who were courageously resisting the rush to war, Gephardt helped draft a "compromise" resolution on the use of force that was no compromise at all.

Gephardt patted himself on the back for negotiating "a number of important improvements," but these were all procedural or rhetorical.

For instance, the compromise resolution expressed "support for United States diplomatic efforts" and would require the President to notify the leaders of Congress within forty-eight hours that diplomacy has failed. Once Bush starts the war, he would have to report back to...