Will this hurt U.S. efforts down the road when, at some unforeseen moment, Washington needs Ankara or Brasilia? Perhaps. But that’s the point: A multi-polar world doesn’t guarantee a less divisive one where everyone gets along and hugs out their problems. Quite the contrary. ~Kevin Sullivan

The real difference between a multipolar world and a bipolar or unipolar one is that many more states are now able to pursue their interests openly and independently. While most states had to align themselves to varying degrees with one of the two superpowers during the Cold War, and most states accepted U.S. leadership in the ’90s even when it did not necessarily suit their particular interests, many of the rising powers no longer feel compelled to follow the lead of U.S. and other Western governments. There was a time when no Turkish civilian government would have risked being seen as antagonistic to Washington for any reason, and there was a time when Brazil was so preoccupied with its own internal problems that it would not have expended any energy on affairs on the other side of the world, but Washington can’t count on reflexive Turkish obedience and Brazilian passivity, just as it can’t count on automatic Japanese support or “slavish” British loyalty anymore.

The problem is that this is hardly the first time that Turkey in particular has been treated shabbily by the U.S. I make no excuses for Erdogan’s penchant for demagoguery and whipping up crowds against other countries, but it is important to understand that he is able to do this because Turks feel neglected and ill-used as allies and most of them recoil from U.S. and Israeli policies in their neighborhood. We exhausted whatever reserve of goodwill towards the U.S. existed in Turkey with the Iraq war, and our government has done precious little to repair the damage that has been done. In the meantime, Turkish politics has changed permanently and isn’t going to return to the Kemalist-dominated system of the past. This isn’t another lament about how Turkey has been “lost” to the West or has become too Islamist. Washington fails to appreciate how useful a more openly Islamist Turkish government can be in mediating disputes and negotiations for the U.S. and other allies, and it jeopardizes the long-term health of the alliance if it insists on making the AK government in Turkey into an obstacle to better relations. Instead of recognizing that Turkey is now ideally placed as a U.S. ally with credibility throughout the region, Washington has opted for dismissing and insulting them instead. And for what? A round of sanctions that most observers agree will do nothing to change Iranian behavior? This is folly.

On a related point, the British coalition government released its proposed agenda yesterday. The foreign affairs section is mosty pretty bland, but there were a few interesting items. In addition to promising a “frank” relationship with the United States, which is in keeping with the rhetoric of both Cameron and Clegg, the government there proposed working towards reform of the Security Council to bring many of the world’s other major powers in as permanent members. They mentioned India, Japan, Germany and Brazil as new permanent members, as well as proposing a seat to represent Africa. Sooner or later, this kind of reform at the U.N. will have to happen or the organization will lose a lot of whatever credibility it still has, as I discuss at greater length in my column this week. Just imagine how different and probably more constructive the debate over Iran sanctions would be if all of these permanent members were already on the Council.

This is not because an expanded Security Council wouldn’t mean less divisiveness and disagreement, and that is exactly why expanding the Council would be valuable, especially when it comes to contentious international issues such as Iran’s nuclear program. The P-5 are pretending that they embody some sort of global consensus, but they don’t and haven’t for decades. Even two of the permanent members don’t really care very much for this new round of sanctions, and until earlier this week Russia was actively encouraging Turkey and Brazil to follow through with this deal. Outside of these states, there are very few that actually care to impose sanctions on Iran. What annoys Washington about what Turkey and Brazil have done is that it exposes this phony consensus for what it is, and it shows that there are credible democratic governments that take a dramatically different view of the Iranian nuclear issue. This undermines the fiction that it is the “international community” punishing Iran, and it shows that Iran is not isolated in the world, and it also shows that democracies and Iran’s authoritarian government do not automatically have to be adversaries. This is dissatisfying to many people here in the U.S. who rely on one or more of these fictions to justify our approach towards Iran.

Update: I hadn’t read this until a few minutes ago, but Leslie Gelb’s column makes many of the same points and explains very well the rest of the world’s impatience with our Iranian nuclear obsession:

In the first place, many, if not most, nations around the world simply do not feel anywhere near as threatened by Iran (or North Korea for that matter) as do the United States, Western Europe, Israel and other American allies. In private, they lift their eyes toward the ceiling when the Americans and Israelis levitate about an Iranian nuclear weapon. They just don’t believe Tehran would be stupid or self-destructive enough to launch a nuclear attack. You can even include China in this group.

This is what I have been saying for years, but I do find it encouraging that this common sense observation is catching on.