The Observer has repeatedly argued, and we continue to do so, that any such military action must have multilateral legitimacy.
Among conservatives in Washington, the French and Germans represent an antiquated world order, whose insistence that military action have multilateral support is merely an attempt to hobble the United States.
Of course it is preferable to have multilateral backing for any intervention that violates state sovereignty, but it is arguable that if the United States had acted unilaterally to end the killing in the Rwandan civil war, many thousands of lives might have been saved (as former President Clinton now admits).
Duterte has backed multilateral talks to settle the row.
He has pushed multilateral initiatives, including a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which many of China's neighbours, including India, have signed up to.
Contrary to accepted wisdom, America does not have a bilateral trade problem with China — it has a multilateral trade problem with a broad cross-section of countries.
As president, Mr. Obama is now overseeing the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and has emphasized multilateral diplomacy in all its messy forms.
Mrs. Merkel, who earned the nickname the "climate chancellor," has pushed multilateral agreements to reduce carbon emissions despite stern resistance from the United States to mandatory cuts.
Repeating a long-standing approach to the United Nations, where China has emphasized multilateral solutions, Mr. Xi said that no country could maintain "absolute stability with its own efforts".
Mr Uribe and his economic team are searching for ways to make up the difference.As a first step, the president has convinced multilateral bodies to step up lending.
