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Since I came to the World Bank in 2007, I have argued that we must 'modernize multilateralism.'

Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.

An increasingly multipolar world requires an entirely different kind of U.S. foreign policy: far from being unilateralist, it necessitates a complex form of power-sharing on both a global and regional basis.

On big issues like war in Iraq, but in many other issues they simply must be multilateral. There's no other way around. You have the instances like the global warming convention, the Kyoto protocol, when the U.S. went its own way.

Co-operation between governments still plays an important role and will remain indispensable.

The United Nations is the preeminent institution of multilateralism. It provides a forum where sovereign states can come together to share burdens, address common problems, and seize common opportunities. The U.N. helps establish the norms that many countries - including the United States - would like everyone to live by.

The reality is that international institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be.

So the president set out the policy guidance and said it had to take place in a multilateral fashion so that other countries in the region could be invested in the success of this process.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.