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Any American conviction would smack of victor's justice and leave nation open to charges of a vendetta against Islam

NEW YORK — With the Taliban rapidly disintegrating, Washington is devoting increasing attention to figuring out what happens next. And that includes a vexing question the White House has still not resolved: what to do with Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if they are captured alive.

The Senate judiciary committee began hearings last week into the administration's decision to create special, secretive military tribunals for the terror suspects.

Senators like Arlen Specter (R-Penn) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have questioned the constitutionality of the jury-rigged courts Bush has proposed and that were authorized without consulting Congress and would deny suspects many of their due process rights.

But such criticisms, while valid, miss the larger point: Holding any form of American trial, whether civilian or military, for bin Laden and associates would be a grave and costly mistake.

Not that this is an argument for shooting him on sight, as Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld seems to prefer. There would be no better way to ensure bin Laden's martyrdom — and give the man exactly what he wants — than to cut him down in battle.

The best option is neither summary execution nor a rushed and secretive American hearing. For a whole raft of reasons — both principled and practical — the U.S. should support an international trial for bin Laden. That the White House has still not figured this out is a sure sign it has yet to internalize the foreign policy lessons of Sept. 11.

Take the practical reasons first. As with summary execution, an American trial would raise the problem of martyrhood. Any domestic conviction of bin Laden — especially by a military court that handed down a death penalty —- would smack of victor's justice and leave Washington open to the charge that the U.S. is carrying out a vendetta against Islam. Even as Washington is winning the war in Afghanistan, it is losing the propaganda battle in moderate Muslim countries, allowing itself to be portrayed as an opponent of Islam generally. Holding an international trial for bin Laden would be a good way to show the United States carries no particular grudge.

Furthermore, while (it can be hoped) even military trials would afford defendants some basic due process protections, many staunch U.S. allies have started to question whether an American court could fairly try a reviled enemy like bin Laden. Such doubts, along with foreign opposition to the death penalty, will prevent European or moderate Muslim states from extraditing bin Laden to these shores if he happens to be captured by allied troops.

Then there is the fact that a domestic trial would create a huge security risk for Americans, dramatically increasing the likelihood of further terror attacks on U.S. soil. The risk of such reprisals could be deflected, however, were trials held under multilateral sponsorship overseas. The Netherlands, home of the United Nations' Yugoslav tribunal, would be a good candidate and be unlikely to suffer similar attacks.

These are some of the prudent arguments for trying bin Laden outside the U.S. But there is also a broader explanation for why the White House should be thinking about justice in international terms. Since Sept. 11, President George W. Bush, who ran for office as an isolationist and mocked international missions like "nation-building" has had to learn fast about the importance of multilateralism.

There are some signs he is getting the message. Witness the way his secretary of state, Colin Powell, recently raced around the globe to stitch together foreign support for the U.S. war effort. Or the fact that, just days after Sept. 11, Republicans in Congress dropped their long-standing refusal to pay Washington's U.N. dues.

Suddenly the White House has woken up to the need to keep its allies happy. And so, in recent weeks, Washington has scrambled to avoid violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia by breaking ground on a new missile shield — a course it seemed dead set on just a few months ago.

Yet despite all these positive signs, the administration has not yet figured out that one can't be a multilateralist only part of the time. If the United States really wants to have its allies on side when it needs them, Washington can't spurn them on key issues.

And one such key issue is international justice — a cause most U.S. allies fiercely support and one they are starting to tie to bin Laden's eventual trial. The United States has developed a general opposition to international justice in the last few years, out of fear that a multilateral court could someday be used against Americans. This fear is largely unfounded, however. Moreover, it is one that Washington can no longer afford to indulge.

Of course, just because its allies want something is not a reason for the U.S. to do it. But holding an international trial for Al Qaeda terrorists would offer strategic advantages to the United States while also strengthening the country's standing and legitimacy in the world.

Sept.11 made it painfully clear that even the planet's sole superpower can no longer manage everything on its own. Bush has shown that he's slowly starting to learn that lesson. But if bin Laden is ultimately captured alive, the White House must remember its newfound wisdom when it finally decides what to do with him.

Jonathan Tepperman is a senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine in New York.