Allies, gained through skillful foreign policy, are important for a number of reasons. This is as true or more so for countries as it is for people like you and me. The longer I live, the more I realize this.

Some of the reasons it is important for the United States to have allies and respect them and their requests:

1) Allies help share the costs of achieving of mutual goals. In the first Gulf War in 1991, under the command of the first President Bush, the United States supplied the bulk of the military power to remove Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. We were really the only willing country with the necessary military muscle to do it. In exchange, our allies, all of whom wanted Saddam out of Kuwait, paid 80% of the costs of the war. This time (the 2003 Iraq War) it was almost entirely an American mission, so our allies, with the exception of Britain, did not help much at all with the cost of the war, the cost of the occupation or the cost of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure. We’ve now poured over $150 billion into the Iraq War and its aftermath. I can imagine a lot of other uses for that much money that would have made me feel a lot safer than having Saddam in a cell and terrorists on the streets of every major city in Iraq.

2) Allies give our efforts more legitimacy. When the U.S. undertakes something alone like invading a country, most of the rest of the world is going to assume that we’re doing it for our own interests, which may or may not conflict with their interests. This is especially true if the country we invade is rich in oil or other resources the world know we want. Imagine how you would feel if France or Japan or Russia invaded Iraq on its own. Now imagine how you would feel if a bunch of countries discussed the options and then, after length discussion, got together and invaded Iraq together. The whole feeling and your perception of it is very different, isn’t it? Now imagine how these two scenarios compare to an Iraqi? Now imagine that a bunch of U.S. soldiers are caught torturing Iraqis in ways that are particularly humiliating to their culture (something that is much less likely to happen with a multinational force). It’s not hard to imagine why the Iraqi insurgents who battle our American troops can find support among their fellow Iraqis.

If we had gone into Iraq armed with a United Nations (U.N.) Security Council Resolution or even a true, significant coalition of allies, we probably would still face some resistance from Saddam loyalists and his Baathist Party. But I don’t think we would be facing an insurgency that is as long-lasting, strong and popular with the Iraqi people as the one we are facing now. The prospects for a free and democratic Iraq would be more likely. The prospects for bringing American troops home would be more likely. The cost of the war would be significantly less. The economic prospects for Iraq would be brighter and the world oil supply would be less uncertain (and gasoline would not be hovering around $2 a gallon). In addition, since the war would have had more legitimacy, we would not be so constrained from acting in other situations that might require force. Other countries that look at what we have done in Iraq will be even less likely to support us in any other action we might want to take.

3) Allies can help with peacekeeping. The U.S. has a special military role in an invasion that no one else can come close to. But U.N. or NATO peacekeepers have done a pretty good job in various hot spots around the world, such as Bosnia, Kosovo and others. U.N. peacekeepers in particular are less likely to be targeted by any but the most extreme terrorists. The vast majority of U.S. forces killed in Iraq were killed during the occupation (peacekeeping), after the invasion was essentially complete. Having allies shouldering the peacekeeping mission would have saved most of these lives. It would also free up our soldiers to respond to other crises. Have you noticed how bold North Korea and Iran have become now that the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq? They know we can’t occupy Iraq and project our forces anywhere else.

In summary, having allies help out reduces the cost in terms of blood and money, increases the likelihood of a stable resolution to the problem and frees us up to do other things with our military, including bringing them home to their families when their mission is done.

And what would we have lost, really?