When Theodore Sorenson speaks of leadership, he speaks from experience.As a former aide to President John F. Kennedy, Sorenson assisted in the writing of Kennedy's Pulitzer-prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, drafted the President's Cold War correspondence with Soviet leaders and had a hand in stringing together the words of Kennedy's 1961 inaugural speech, in which the iconic American leader solidified his place as a purveyor of democratic principles: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

It is because of these credentials that people take notice when Sorenson discusses his views on the state of American affairs, as he did in a visit to Brandeis last week. Sorenson, the chair of the board of advisors for the University's International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, came to campus to participate in a panel discussion Thursday. Along with other members of the board, Sorenson spoke as part of a series of presentations run by the Center entitled "The Long View."

In addition to his experience with presidential politics, Sorenson spent decades working in the field of international law. As an astute observer and participant in foreign affairs, he possesses a deep appreciation for multilateral diplomacy-an appreciation which has led him to sharply criticize the Bush administration's mostly unilateral approach to international relations.

In a 2004 speech at the commencement ceremonies of the New School University in New York, Sorenson expressed these criticisms with blunt gravitas.

"Future historians studying the decline and fall of America," he declared, "will mark this as the time the tide began to turn toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon."

These comments, which came in the wake of the Abu Graihb prison scandal and more than a year after the United States' invasion of Iraq, revealed a sour sentiment from which Sorenson has not backed down during the subsequent two years.

"I don't take back any of those words," he said in an interview with the Justice a few days before his visit. Sorenson's remarks at Thursday's event also echoed those of his New School address, highlighting what he perceived to be the long-term detrimental effects of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

"Our children and grandchildren and you, the student generation, will have to climb uphill to undo what's been done," he told those in attendance.

At the center, Sorenson has been involved with a number of projects that relate to his interests in America's global reputation. He says his favorite project is an annual institute for judges of international courts and tribunals at which justices discuss issues of judicial oversight such as ethics, interpretations of international law and the handling of international evidence.

"Nobody's ever done that before," he said of the institutes. "These are dedicated jurists who are performing a very important contribution to peace and reconciliation, and this gives them strength. They know they've got some company and support for the work they do."

Support for international tribunals is something that Sorenson claims the Bush administration has improperly withheld. In May 2002, the United States officially withdrew its signature from a treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, citing concerns over the possible prosecution of American peacekeeping forces and other U.S. nationals. Sorenson says he believes U.S. resistance to the court has harmed its reputation among the international community as the "noble beacon" he claimed the country once was in his remarks at the New School.

"I think it has definitely damaged us," he says. "The United States used to be one of the leaders in the formulation of international law and international tribunals."

Sorenson cited the chaos and violence surrounding the trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as an example of the need for international courts.

"The Saddam trial is such a new and overwhelming effort for a national court," he says. "It points out the wisdom of establishing special international tribunals."

Sorenson speaks passionately about the U.S. war in Iraq, which he said is another blundering footprint on the Bush administration's trail of diplomatic missteps. His objections are similar to those shared by many who opposed the war: that Hussein was not a direct threat to American security, that U.N. weapons inspectors would have confirmed that Hussein was not harboring weapons of mass destruction, that a diplomatic ouster of the Iraqi ruler could and should have been enacted effectively.

"All of the worries that were voiced by the president could have been ameliorated without the U.S. invasion," he says.

Once the invasion began, however, Sorenson says he knew Iraq would eventually need a "new start" and that it would require the drafting of a constitution. He became involved in the process at the suggestion of Daniel Terris, the director of Brandeis' ethics center. (Daniel Terris, Director of the ethics center, is the father of Feature's editor, Ben Terris.)

Terris felt that the international expertise of the members of the advisory board could be beneficial to Near Eastern and Judaic Studies adjunct professor Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi exile who had returned to his home country after the invasion to work as the primary author of the new constitution. Sorenson offered to communicate to his contacts at the United Nations that the board would like to provide advice to the authors of the document. "A constitution, I thought, could play a helpful role and I wanted to participate in that to the extent that I could," he said.

Although Sorenson said the U.N. connection eventually fell through, the board did meet for a day-long meeting, with Makiya present, in which they discussed the parameters of an ideal Iraqi constitution.

Sorenson says his work in the Democratic party provided him with a sense of how to assemble opposing views into a cohesive document.

"The old rule I used to quote on [political] platform drafting would, I think, be the same rule on constitution drafting in Iraq, which is 'everybody gets something, nobody gets everything," he said.

When asked if America's response to its enemies should become more aggressive in the face of the threats posed by terrorism, Sorenson acknowledged that Osama Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders had "no system, no society" to protect as Soviet officials did during Cold War nuclear negotiations. But he remained adamant that diplomatic solutions must be achieved.

"I still remember what [former Israeli] Prime Minister Rabin said before he was killed [in 1994]," Sorenson recalled. "He said of course you negotiate with your enemy. Who else do you negotiate with?