"Questions Grow Over U.N. Curbs on North Korea."

That's The New York Times, than which I guess there simply can't be found a sterner advocate of "multilateral" engagement in the cause of world peace and order.

Alas, The Times is obliged to inform us, multilateralism is right now having its downs as well as its ups. Last week, the Security Council enacted sanctions intended to bring North Korea around before it can develop nuclear weaponry and possibly go bananas.

Still, as The Times noted Monday, "both South Korea and China -- the North's two most important trading partners -- indicated that business and economic relations would be largely unaffected." China, for instance, disclaimed any "intention of stopping and inspecting cross-border shipments, as called for, but not specifically required, in the resolution."

Which could leave you wondering just how badly the North Korean nuclear gambit upset the Chinese to begin with. So might it leave you scratching your head over an even larger question: Can the world really do without the "cowboy unilateralism" we're all currently supposed to hate and fear?

If "multilateralism" means passing resolutions and letting the parties decide how fully to comply, the case for good old-fashioned American "cowboyism" looks better by the day. Never mind how carefully we've been instructed to turn green and faint at the sound of George W. Bush's voice.

Not just in foreign capitals, but on the Democratic Party blogs here, and on the campaign trail, the conventional rap on Bush exempts the United Nations from failing to control Iraqi bad behavior, especially as concerned the weapons of mass destruction nearly everyone agreed Saddam Hussein was building and guarding. When the Bush administration asked for help in corralling Saddam, yet failed to enlist the United Nations in the cause, Bush had to fall back on "the coalition of the willing." A number of us had hoped it wouldn't come to this. We had desired there might be something like general agreement as to punishing Saddam Hussein for failure to live up to the U.N.'s expectations. No such luck. Continued...