Iraq: At the Apex of Evil

In 1999, Hubert Vedrine, then Foreign Minister of France, coined a new term that has become popular among international relations commentators.1 Discarding the term "super-power" as a Cold War anachronism, Vedrine described the United States as a hyper-puissance, or "hyper-power. ' '2 No other country in the history of the world, Vedrine said, had amassed so much power so completely-militarily, politically, and culturally. 3 While it is tempting to conclude that the French Foreign Minister was expressing awe for the United States, his real purpose was to suggest that such an accumulation of power in the hands of one country presents dangers for all the rest. Vedrine feared the capacity of the United States to enforce its will on the world without reference to the opinions of its allies. France and the other "great powers," Vedrine urged, must act as a counter-weight to the hyper-power.4 Vedrine's hyper-power concept captures an essential truth: At least according to conventional measures of national power, the United States is unsurpassed and is poised to remain so for a long time to come.5 As the scholar Joseph Nye has noted, "not since Rome has one nation loomed so large above the others." 6 But, as described above, Vedrine and others view the disproportionate nature of