PHILIP BOBBITT has an interesting essay in the Financial Times on charges of U.S. imperialism:

It is not simply that current international law and the institutions it has created cannot assure international security, it is that they are a positive barrier to such security because they are used to hamstring the one state with the power and willingness to intervene on behalf of world order. The reason imperialist Othellos are drawn to hegemonical daydreaming is not that they actually want to take up imperial responsibilities for economic development and governance, nor because they relish sending American youths to hostile and unpacifiable provinces, but because they know that international institutions are currently incapable of maintaining, much less achieving, stable security environments. The reason the imperialist has faith in unilateralism is because he has no faith in multilateralism and, after Bosnia, Lebanon and Palestine, who can blame him?

Read the whole thing.