Why would both McCain and top advisers to Obama endorse this allegedly radical idea? Let's let Lake answer: "One thing is clear," he wrote in the American Interest. "Crises in Iran, North Korea, Iraq and Darfur, not to mention the pressing need for more efficient peacekeeping operations, the rising temperatures of our seas and multiple other transnational threats, demonstrate not only the limits of American unilateral power but also the inability of international institutions designed in the middle of the 20th century to cope with the problems of the 21st."

In other words, a post-Cold War and post-George Bush United States will not have the capacity or the legitimacy to unilaterally take on global crises. But working through the United Nations, as Bush himself tried to do for the past several years, is more often than not a recipe for paralysis, because of the resistance of non-democratic states. Take the past few months: China, helped by Russia, has stopped the Security Council from discussing a humanitarian intervention to rescue the 1.5 million Burmese endangered by the criminal neglect of their government following a cyclone. Strong sanctions against Iran for its refusal to freeze its nuclear program have been blocked by Russia. An attempted U.N. intervention in Darfur is failing, largely because of Chinese and Russian refusal to authorize stronger measures against the government of Sudan.

Whether Obama or McCain, the next president will take office knowing that he inherits the messes in Darfur, Burma and Iran and also that new crises will erupt during his term. If he is unable to respond -- if he, like Bush, ends up watching as tens or hundreds of thousands of people die in a weak or failed state while China and Russia block U.N. action -- he will be harshly judged. That's why McCain has smartly begun to talk about his League of Democracies and promised early action to create it. If Obama is wise, he will make Daalder's Concert of Democracies part of his own campaign.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/18/AR2008051801909.html