The Bush Unliateralist Myth

Today's WSJ (subscription may be required) makes a convincing argument that, contrary to the myth coming from the MSM, President Bush has been far too multilateral in his foreign policy approaches:

Mr. Bush came under early fire after announcing that the U.S. would reject the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, the U.S. had never ratified Kyoto, and the Clinton Administration had refused even to submit it for a vote. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 not to endorse any climate change pact that didn't include China, India and other developing countries, as Kyoto didn't. Voting "aye" were Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Harry Reid, among other noted unilateralists.

Iraq is where the unilateral myth settled into media concrete. But in fact, in 2002 President Bush bucked the advice of his more hawkish advisers and agreed to take Tony Blair's advice and seek another U.N. Resolution -- was it the 16th or 17th? -- against Saddam Hussein. Resolution 1441 passed 15-0. True, the Administration failed to obtain a second resolution, not least because the French reneged on private assurances that it would agree to a second resolution if America obtained the first. But who was being unilateral there? As it was, the "coalition of the willing" that liberated Iraq included, besides the U.S. contingent, some 60,000 troops from 39 countries, who have operated under a U.N. resolution blessing their presence.

The article also goes on to describe other multilateral approaches: North Korea, Iran, Israel-Palestine, and Darfur. All miserable failures. The argument that Bush is a unilateralist is one of the biggest lies his critics have been able to promote (perhaps only behind the "Iraq had no terrorist connections" lie).

My question is: what good is multilateralism if it always fails?