International law giant Thomas M. Franck offers another rebuttal to the Becker/Posner type of argument in his short piece in the Proceedings of the American Society of International Law annual meeting (ASIL Proceedings 2004 at p. 267).
"After World War II, it was the United States that was singularly responsible for designing the post-war system of institutionalized governance and international law that is embodied in the UN Charter. Chief of its characteristics was the strict limitation on the discretion of individual states to resort to force.
Instead of building on that base, Washington has now boldly asserted a new policy that openly repudiates the restrictions on recourse to force of Charter Artice 2(4)...
Our government may be saying no more than did Leona Helmsley when, reputedly, she told a servant that "only little people pay taxes."
In other words, our government is saying: "Only little states follow international law."