Regardless of how powerful America may be militarily, the war on terrorism cannot be won unless the next administration acts multilaterally. Although the United States obviously needs to consider taking unilateral action when imminent danger to its national security is positively identified, multilateralism must be the strategy of choice. Only such a policy will allow America to maintain credibility and ensure the continuing support of the international community in the fight against terrorism.

There are three schools of thought about America's military and political leadership in the world as it battles international terrorism: The first, to which many Democrats subscribe, believes the United States needs to act multilaterally while advancing the humanitarian causes that should be part and parcel of the war on terrorism. This line of thinking supports the right to attack preemptively and unilaterally when imminent danger is established but only after the failure of all other efforts.

The second school of thought, generally supported by Republicans, believes in unilateral leadership, which relies on the use of power, including that of the military, to achieve national objectives. Conservative Republicans who support this approach insist the United States cannot subcontract its national security interests to other players, including international institutions such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

The third school of thought borrows from the other two, but argues more forcefully for an America that is the ultimate world leader by virtue of its vast wealth and military, cultural, and technological power. According to this view, the United States must act as its sees fit on its own behalf and on that of other nations because if it does not take the lead, no other nation or nations will. The neo-conservative Republicans who argue for this strategy have no illusions about America's rise to ultimate supremacy; from their perspective, it places the United States in a unique historical position to assume the leadership of the world with or without the support of other countries.

Irrespective of the philosophical debates concerning America's global role, the scope, pervasiveness, and conditions that nurture terrorism make it simply impossible to defeat unless the United States makes multilateralism both the vehicle and the foundation of its strategy. The war in Iraq provides, of course, a vivid example of the hazards of going it alone.

The Bush administration's decision to abandon multilateral efforts has embittered even those nations that would have supported action against Saddam Hussein. Bent on removing him at any cost, in the name of battling terrorism and destroying weapons of mass destruction, the administration's unilateralists quickly gave up on America's allies and their demands for more time in deciding on the best option.

Instead of making a supreme effort to persuade these allies to support its Iraqi policy, the administration turned to regimes that it bribed-via promises of aid -- or threatened into joining the so-called the coalition of the willing. Because the coalition basically provided symbolic support, the United States was unable to muster the necessary number of troops to consolidate its control in Iraq, making security there impossible to maintain. American troops and Iraqi citizens thus continue to be vulnerable to attacks by insurgents and casualties mount.

In addition, the administration was more than willing to abandon international institutions like the U.N. Security Council and circumvent international law, both of which it saw as obstacles to its strategic designs. In reality, these policies would have appeared far more legitimate had they received their support. The administration further failed to understand that bullying other nations to take its side, especially Western democracies, caused many of them to find it politically necessary and even beneficial to oppose the United States, lest they be viewed at home as being subservient to Washington.

The sad reality is that the administration ignored the basic lesson of the Cold War -- that the United States is strongest when it turns to its traditional allies to help safeguard common values. Now, especially when the European community, led by France and Germany, no longer feels the need for the American security blanket that has historically justified U.S. predominance, it wants a voice of its own.

Western Europe's leaders -- with the exception of Tony Blair, whose support Bush has relied on from the start -- most likely would be prepared to share the risks and send their men and women into harm's way, but they also want to be part of the decision-making process on issues affecting the safety and security of their own countries. By acting almost unilaterally, the administration has squandered the incredible international sympathy generated after 9/11, and left traditional allies and other countries that would have supported it feeling little or no responsibility for the outcome.

Instead, most Western governments actually view U.S. policies as a threat to European cohesiveness and possibly to their own national security interests. Thus, the administration has fueled rather than diminished international terrorism. The recent terrorist bombings in Spain, according to the prevailing view in Europe and elsewhere, signal only the beginning of similar attacks.

In this context, it is useful to recall former President Clinton's observation, Unilateralism in the world that we live in is not a viable option. In combating international terrorism, which by its very nature affects other nations directly or indirectly, nothing undermines America's moral and practical authority to lead more than the prevailing perception that it is willing to ignore the norms that have governed international relations and act anywhere and at anytime with impunity.

This is why the next administration must immediately change course and act on the basic premise that no matter what means the United States employs, it cannot defeat terrorism single-handedly. Iraq, as it is turning out, neither was nor is the major battleground in the war against terrorism. No connection has been established between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida (a fact recently confirmed by the findings of Senate Intelligence Committee). If anything, U.S. actions in Iraq have galvanized anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab and the Muslim worlds, escalated international terrorism, and done more damage to U.S. credibility and interests in the region-and the world than can be realistically assessed at this juncture.

What is evident is that the need for a real strategy with multilateralism as its core seems more urgent than ever before. To this end, the next administration must strengthen international organizations, especially the Security Council and NATO, not only because international security is the domain of the global community, but also because the war on terrorism cannot be won without their full and consistent participation:

Although the Security Council is neither institutionally nor culturally a suitable forum for open-ended public arguments or negotiations, its full weight as an institution in charge of international security can be brought to bear during an international crisis. Successive administrations have generally been skeptical of the Security Council. But in the post-9/11 world, the Bush team became even more determined not to let any state or institution stand in its way in the battle against terrorism.

Thus, the Security Council has found itself with even less power to inhibit America, with its unique position in the community of nations. But flawed, as it may be, the council remains the sole legitimate international body capable of dealing effectively with international security and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Even the Bush administration has acknowledged this to some degree. Before the invasion of Iraq, Bush still felt the Security Council important enough to turn to it in seeking legitimacy for the use force against Iraq and in containing North Korea. And in the post-Iraq war, he turned back to the United Nations for help in making the transition from the occupation authority to an Iraqi civilian government. Another reality is that the Security Council can offer political cover for reluctant allies to join U.S. efforts to combat terrorism, including military actions.

For these reasons, the next administration must work with other veto-bearing members such as Russia and China, whose support it will need sooner rather than later to resolve other international crises, like the dangerous India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir which fuels terrorism and the pursuit of WMD by rogue states, such as Iran.

Indeed, the strength or weakness of the Security Council is the sum of the efforts and commitment member states invest in it. If the next administration dismisses the council as irrelevant, the organization's impotence will probably more adversely affect the United States -- because of its global strategic interests -- than any other nation.

For this reason alone, the next administration needs to strengthen the Security Council by also helping to enlarge the number of permanent member states from the current five to 11 -- by adding Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, and Nigeria. Together their membership would constitute more than 50 percent of the world's population and make the Security Council truly representative of the international community empowered to act more effectively around the globe.

The other organization that current administration polices may have adversely affected, and in which the United States has long had traditional strategic interests, is NATO. At present there are growing rumblings about America's dominant military role, and some reorganization is probably overdue. Nonetheless, NATO remains critical not just for keeping the peace on the European continent but in the fight against international terrorism. In the wake of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and particularly since 9/11, NATO's role and the means of realizing its goals have altered dramatically.

But even so, NATO must modernize itself to become effective in the war on terrorism, and the United States must play the major part in bringing about necessary changes. Because France and Germany are dominant members of NATO, the next administration needs to recognize their support is essential to its revitalization. NATO's capabilities in the area of modern warfare are at present weak. Although all members should equally shoulder the responsibility for its modernization, as a start, the United States should consider withdrawing most American troops from Europe, and then invest a large proportion of the huge amount saved in updating NATO technologically so it can adapt itself to fighting terrorism within and outside Europe.

But as much as NATO needs to modernize technologically, it also must adjust psychologically to the world's new security requirements. As the sole defensive arm of the transatlantic community, it is -- as Richard Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has argued -- the most natural institution for meeting the challenges of terrorism and the proliferation and use of WMD. Retired Gen. Wellesley Clark, NATO's former commander, stated things even more categorically, saying that it can be the most potent organization to deal with terrorism.

In the final analysis, whether NATO's current weakness can be attributed to its lacking the political will to modernize, or to the changing geopolitical dynamic after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or its being side-stepped in the war in Iraq, it remains vital to America's national security. A strong U.S. commitment to NATO is critical because it is still the most reliable existing military organization for conducting multilateral operations, especially as its domain now includes the East European states.

In sum, only when both the Security Council and NATO have greater authority will they take their responsibilities seriously and play a constructive role, as they should, against the ever-expanding global terrorism. Indeed, despite setbacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere, al-Qaida remains extremely potent due to its ability to adjust and even transform itself depending on the specific political environment. As the leading terrorist group, al-Qaida remains institutionally solid, with a worldwide network of clandestine human and financial resources. Although it has decentralized operations since the fall of Afghanistan, al-Qaida has kept close ties to ruling elites, especially in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Intelligence estimates suggest that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations loosely affiliated with it have actually expanded their networks by establishing new cells or adding to those already existing in scores of countries in every continent, often with local community support.

The Iraqi situation has galvanized terrorist groups into providing logistical and financial support to one another. For example, greater cooperation has been evidenced among al-Qaida, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Gama'at al Tawhid and Jihad in Iraq, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Israel, and several similar organizations, such as the International Islamic Front for Jihad, which encompasses groups such as Arabs who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Besides shifting to decentralization and the development of leaderless cells constantly seeking targets of opportunity, al-Qaida has been recruiting Muslim and Arabs citizens of Western nations with clean records, among them well-to-do and/or professional Muslim women. The biggest problem for the United States is not so much the terrorists it kills or captures or the terrorist infrastructures it destroys, but the hundreds of thousands -- really millions -- of poor and well-to-do young men and women in the Middle East and Asia who will fill the terrorist ranks for decades to come.

I've sketched this brief picture of the expansiveness of international terrorism today to underscore that a multilateral campaign against terrorism represents the only possible way to diminish and eventually defeat it. How many counties can the United States conquer almost single-handedly without suffering even more terrible consequences of unilateralism?

Iraq has shown conclusively America's limitations. It is true that scores of nations cooperate with this country in the fight against terrorism; there is a difference, however, between the cooperation of necessity and a total commitment to eradicate terrorism on their own turf. Although U.S. leadership remains indispensable, America cannot not be omnipresent. The next administration has to share the burdens, responsibilities, and the authority with other nations, thereby making such efforts truly multilateral.

As the world's most powerful nation, the United States has an obligation to the safety and national security of the American people, but also to the safety and security of the people of many other nations in every continent. Because the United States has interests in every corner of the globe, it's impossible separate these interests from those nations its actions affect.

But while it gives the opportunity to persuade other nations to follow its lead, America's power should never be seen as a license to bully them into submission.

In the post-9/11 era, the next administration faces a historic choice: to pursue unilateral policies in an effort to safeguard narrow national interests and thereby further isolate this nation and increase its vulnerability to terrorists attacks, or combine America's unprecedented power with moral authority through a multilateral approach that strengthens national security while containing and eventually defeating terrorism.

Alon Ben-Meir is the Middle East Project Director at the World Policy Institute, New York, and a professor of International Relations at New York University.

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