FT.com
America cannot afford to ignore the UN

Even more than the conventional military strategies of the past, the new vision of national security presupposes internationally accepted legitimacy for US operations and close co-operation with other states. How, after all, will Washington ensure regime change without persuading others to commit ground troops to share the burdens of military occupation? The war against Iraq alone will require more National Guard and Reserve forces than the 70,000 so far assigned. What effective intelligence war can be won against terrorism by going it alone when it will take years for the CIA merely to train an adequate number of Arabic-language specialists?

The limits to even America's power are quickly reached. If this administration is serious about its global mission, it has no choice but multilateralism, and there can probably be no multilateralism except through the much-despised UN.