Slouching towards multilateralism

The tragic crisis in Syria is giving the world a glimpse of what a multilateral future might look like. Instead of going it alone, the United States has decided to compromise and work with other stakeholders in the international system.

The difference between dropping and not dropping bombs on Syria is not just the difference between the merits of war and diplomacy. Rather it's the first glimpse of a new world order, in which the US has an important role to play, but doesn't always get things its way, especially when the leadership lacks support at home and abroad.

It was far from US President Barack Obama's finest moment, but he was far-sighted enough to put a bad decision on hold, with the knowledge that flip-flops and lousy optics don't matter if he gets the right fix for the problem in the long run. He proved he's still got game; caught flat-footed in a corner, he threw the ball to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As for this turnabout, the American public gets some of the credit, for citizens in all walks of life made it clear, through the media, on the Internet and through their elected representatives, that they are war-weary. Fans started to boo Team America when it adopted the gangster pose of a gung-ho gunslinger.

A bellicose US president has backed down for lack of support, though he remains truculent enough to reserve the right to launch unilateral attacks in the future, un-vetted and unapproved by Congress, in the name of "national security".

Even after Russia offered what appears to be an effective way out, Obama symbolically stuck to his guns, delivering a prime-time war speech riddled with internal contradictions and doubts. On the one hand, the boilerplate script for a call to arms was full of rash, rhetorical bravado, asking Americans to watch the sickening news videos from Syria, as if to provoke a visceral reaction that would cloud clear thinking.

Furthermore the offensive was billed as a "no boots on the ground" affair, which is code for killing without fear of being killed; an unkind message hammered home by neo-liberal hawks close to the president, such as National Security Advisor Susan Rice and UN Ambassador Samantha Powers.

On the other hand, enough wiggle room was left to make way for the weak possibility that there remained a peaceful way to squelch Syria's chemical weaponry, if Russia came out in support of verifiable inspections.

If the community of nations is to evolve beyond the one-sided bullying of unilateralism to the communal decision-making of multilateralism, the US needs to behave more democratically in international forums.