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THE PERILS OF MULTILATERALISM UNILATERALISM. Charles Krauthammer has another one in his occasional series of columns deriding the usefulness and effectiveness of multilateralism. It would seem, however, that his thinly veiled contempt for the cumbersome process of consensus-building is a bit misplaced -- he's convinced that both North Korea and Iran will finish their nuclear bombs, and nothing we or our allies can do will stop them. That is, of course, true. But it's a truth that multilateralism could have helped prevent.Going to your allies is not a solely transactional process. You do it to attract their cooperation and material support for your plans, to be sure, but you also do it to get outside feedback on your priorities. If no one is willing to accede to your scheme, it may indeed be a crackpot, counterproductive, or problematic undertaking. So it was with Iraq, which other countries realized would prove an eventual mess. When we were readying to enter the country, Dominique de Villepin, the much maligned French ambassador to the UN foreign minister, said:
To those who hope to eliminate the dangers of proliferation through armed intervention in Iraq, I wish to say that we regret that they are depriving themselves of a key tool for other crises of the same type. The Iraq crisis allowed us craft an instrument, through the inspections regime, which is unprecedented and can serve as an example. Why, on this basis not envision establishing an innovative, permanent structure, a disarmament body under the United Nations?He was right. After we showed ourselves determined to invade and unwilling to accept any diversions from our course, we confirmed the suspicion held by marginalized states that true security ran through high-powered weaponry. And so they've pursued nukes single-mindedly, seeking only to confuse and stall international action long enough to build a bomb. Having rejected multilateralism's warnings in Iraq's case, we have now created a context in which it fails to divert nuclear plans in all cases. That is not the fault of multilateralism, it is the legacy of unilateralism. We didn't allow our allies to check our actions, and so now none believe our, or their, guarantees of security.
--Ezra Klein