It is hard to take seriously the notion that such congressional involvement will prove a very burdensome or time-consuming requirement. Surely even a very busy Congress can cope with decision making at that pace. It is perfectly appropriate to counter one sort of symbolic caution with a somewhat contrasting gesture, affirming a different and competing general concern. But the third point I would make is that the international programs at issue here do carry some potential for abuse, which makes it all the more appropriate for Congress to insist that American involvement in these programs comply with basic constitutional norms. A people who must satisfy the concerns of outsiders before they act are not sovereign.
Sovereignty is the prerequisite, in that sense, to full democracy.
One may dismiss all this as empty abstraction. But consider another historic implication of the doctrine of sovereignty. A sovereign nation cannot, by definition, be answerable to the Pope for its conduct. If it had to submit its policies to papal approval, it would not be sovereign. I am sure I need not belabor to this committee how very, very seriously some people take this principle today.