Now that a few days have passed following the conclusion of the most recent General Assembly meeting, as Americans and citizens of the world we owe a hearty congratulation to the United Nations and President Barack Obama. The U.N. showed for the first time in years that it could serve as a useful forum for the exchange of ideas, albeit some less practical than others, and forming policy that benefits the world as a whole. Obama and his administration deserve credit for viewing the U.N. as part of the solution and not the problem in confronting issues that threaten U.S. interests. The United States and the U.N. will always have a unique relationship as the worldâÄôs most powerful country and the closest thing to a world government, respectively. However, we must never neglect the fact that most of the time the global communityâÄôs interests coincide with ours. Working with and respecting the decisions of the U.N. will help the United States restore a significant source of power that the abysmal foreign policy of the Bush Administration effectively destroyed. The enemies that now threaten U.S. interests are faceless: terrorism, weapons proliferation, poverty, climate change and pandemic diseases. In a world where threats to the United States and the global community transcend borders, we cannot afford to âÄúgo it alone.âÄù I applaud Obama and his administration for knowing this. Ian J Byrne University undergraduate student Please send comments to [email protected].