Barak Obama, The Audacity of Hope:
Once we get beyond matter of self-defense, though, I’m convinced that it will almost always be in our strategic interest to act multilaterally rather than unilaterally when we use force around the world. By this, I do not mean that the UN Security Council—a body that in its structure and rules too often appears frozen in a Cold War-era time warp—should have a veto over our actions. Nor do I mean that we round up the United Kingdom and Togo and then do what we please. Acting multilaterally means doing what George H. W. Bush and his team did in the first Gulf War—engaging in the hard diplomatic work of obtaining most of the world’s support for our actions, and making sure our actions serve to further recognize international norms.
Why conduct ourselves in this way? Because nobody benefits more than we do from the observance of international “rules of the road.” We can’t win converts to those rules if we act as if they apply to everyone but us. When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules are simple tools of American imperialism.
