The administration would also have to demonstrate that it had fully exhausted all diplomatic alternatives to war.

This administration disdained the United Nations weapons inspection process and rushed to war without exhausting diplomatic alternatives.

Mr. Bush said repeatedly that he went to the United Nations seeking a diplomatic alternative to war.

In fact, the United States rejected all diplomatic alternatives at the time, severely damaging relations with some of its most important and loyal allies.

The diplomatic alternative also raises difficult questions.

Peace groups around the nation are preparing vigils and rallies on Sunday to demand legal and diplomatic alternatives to war.

However, if there is no such representation (in modern terms often at ambassadorial level), the task may fall to the only available "diplomatic" alternative: consular representation.

Instead, Bush and Rice concluded that it was necessary to exhaust diplomatic alternatives, in order to make international sanctions possible later.

When pollsters provide no diplomatic alternative, respondents overwhelmingly support attacking over doing nothing.

However to ignore a diplomatic alternative, even an inadequate one, that got Iraq out of Kuwait would be difficult.