The American ambassador at the United Nations, John Negroponte, stalked out of a U.N. Security Council debate yesterday when Saddam Hussein’s ambassador accused America of “criminal aggression” intended to wipe out the Iraqi people. Prime Minister Blair couldn’t even be bothered to come into Manhattan from Kennedy Airport to meet with the U.N. secretary general. And the foreign minister of France, an ally that is bound by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to come to America’s aid when America is attacked, refuses to say which side of the war he supports, America or Saddam Hussein.

It’s all an indication that some structures that have been with us for decades— the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — are going to be due for a cold, hard look from America once this war is over.

In the case of the U.N., Mr. Negroponte made a smart move in walking out. The question is why he’d ever go back in. For the massive share of the U.N.’s expenses that the American taxpayers shoulder, not to mention the unpaid parking tickets with which its diplomats stiff New York, we could do better. Any international body that puts unfree dictatorships like Communist China, Syria, and Libya on the same level as America — and that does not admit Taiwan as a member — isn’t worth much. American dollars and diplomatic energy would be better devoted to constructing a world body that consists only of free and democratic governments, a body that could then work aggressively to expand its membership.

Such a body is NATO. That is why the refusal of our NATO allies like France, Germany and Canada to meet their treaty obligations is so disappointing. When America was attacked on September 11, 2001, NATO formally and fully invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history. And NATO allies, in cluding France, Germany and Canada, helped America in the fight to oust the Taliban and disrupt Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan. So what to make of France, Germany, and Canada standing on the sidelines, or, in the case of France and Germany, actively working against America in the second phase of the war on terrorism, the war against Saddam Hussein?

Some claim Saddam is not connected to September 11. But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Just yesterday, The New York Sun ran on its front page a mural from an Iraqi military headquarters building that depicted Iraqi airplanes crashing, September 11-style, into twin towers. Iraq’s state-run press praised the attack on the World Trade Center after it happened. The American director of central intelligence, George Tenet, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 11 that Iraq is harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by a close associate of Osama bin Laden, that Iraq has provided training in document forgery and bombmaking to Al Qaeda, and provided training in poisons and gasses to two Al Qaeda associates. The DCI said the information “is based on a solid foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources.”

It’s all enough to tempt us to call for kicking France, Germany and Canada out of NATO. But we placed a call to one of our sources on the European front, the Polish anti-communist hero, Radek Sikorski. Mr. Sikorski counseled us to remember Churchill’s advice about “in victory, magnanimity.” He sketched an alternative strategy that would involve rewarding the European countries that are helping us in the war against Saddam. Iraq owes $700 million in debt to Poland and $1.7 billion to Bulgaria; those NATO allies, which have helped America, could have their debts paid by postwar Iraq before countries like France or Germany.

America could also consider bilateral military agreements and joint exercises that reinforce our military ties to our true friends in Europe outside the context of NATO. The idea of moving some American bases in Europe to Poland from Germany, which we wrote about in February, resonates in the New Europe. There are other ways to reward true friends, Mr. Sikorski points out, such as easing onerous visa requirements for those traveling to America, and lowering trade barriers. And it’s worth working to cultivate and build relationships with pro- American politicians and institutions, both in the countries that are with us in the anti-Saddam coalition and in those that aren’t.

Magnanimity, yes. Malice, no. But neither can America go forward in the postwar world without taking into account the spectacular failures of some NATO allies and of the United Nations.