The United States has always depended on regional allies around the world to support its foreign policy agenda. But this is especially true today. Experiences with near-unilateralism in Iraq and elsewhere have shown that the United States cannot simply impose its agenda on its allies, and as a result, President Obama has made multilateralism a centerpiece of his foreign policy. But as the need for multilateralism increases, the voices of U.S. allies are becoming louder. For Turkey and Japan—two historically vital U.S. partners—their voices increasingly seem to clash with U.S. interests. But this impression is mistaken and is clouded by short-term thinking. In dealing with these two important allies, Obama would be well advised to take a longer-term view.

Turkey, in particular, has exerted its influence in highly visible ways in recent months. In May, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil announced a deal to reprocess Iranian nuclear fuel (for more, see ). This deal was harshly criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who claimed that the Iranians had taken advantage of Turkey and Brazil and that the deal would undermine efforts to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. The UN Security Council ultimately approved new, tougher sanctions on Iran, over the dissenting votes of Turkey and Brazil..............

On the other side of the world, Japan also has found its interests increasingly coming into conflict with those of the United States. This tension recently manifested itself with the resignation of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Last year, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—which had ruled Japan nearly uninterrupted for 55 years—was defeated in parliamentary elections by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), under the leadership of Hatoyama. This represented a monumental change in a political system that had grown ossified, stale, and increasingly beholden to an unaccountable and entrenched bureaucracy. Hatoyama primarily ran on a campaign that pledged to up-root this governing system and introduce a "politician-led" government; after years of economic and political stagnation, this was a popular platform, and the DPJ won handily.