Charles Rowley's Blog

In a world grounded on the concept of sovereign nation states – and that is essentially the world since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 – nation states should consider circumspectly before deciding to intervene in the affairs of another nation. Specifically, they should consider only the interests of their own citizens. And by interest, I mean narrow interest, revolving around the lives, liberties and properties of their people. They should also reflect carefully as to whether any form of intervention feasibly can affect those interests in a favorable direction, with the benefits outweighing the costs of such intervention.

From this perspective, a case can be made ex ante that military intervention by the United States in Iraq was justified. There was a reasonable expectation that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction and that he was prepared to use such weapons against direct United States interests. There was the certainty that Iraq sat on large reserves of oil and that Saddam Hussein may have been willing to manipulate such reserves against United States interests, or simply shut them down. So a short-term strike, designed to eliminate Saddam Hussein and his regime, and then to withdraw surely should have been on the U.S. policy-table. Under no circumstances,should a long-term attempt at nation-building have followed. That was a major error on the part of the Bush Junior administration – an error that his father had not made.

No such case for intervention exists as a consequence of the so-called Arab Spring. Libya is blessed, or cursed, with oil reserves, but there was no clear threat to the U.S. from the Gadaffi dictatorship. Surely the Gadaffi regime could be and was taken down by U.S. intervention. But U.S. interests are worsened by that outcome. A reluctant ally has been replaced by a Muslim fundamentalist government that is ill-disposed to the West.

Egypt, again offered no U.S. interest that justified toppling the Mubarak dictatorship. Egypt has no worthwhile natural resources that could have been directed against the U.S. Mubarak was a long-term loyal supporter of U.S. policy including the protection of Israel. The outcome of meddling is that a hostile Muslim fundamentalist majority now poses a significant threat to Israel, a threat that would force the U.S. into a major war, should it be implemented.

The U.S. has no national interest in meddling in Syria. Syria has no natural resources and a sequence of drone strikes could put their nuclear program back into the stone age. Bashar al-Assad is a repellent chinless-wonder dictator, willing to turn weapons of mass destruction onto hos own people. But there is no indication that the rebels would not follow suit if such weapons fell into their hands. The country is a shambles and from the perspective of the U.S that may be the safest condition, given the malevolence to the West displayed by almost all segments of the population, not least the Muslim majority. If the U.S. desired to help itself, it could open its own borders to the best trained scientists and scholars from Syria, further depleting the country’s chances of ever pulling out of abject poverty.

Real-politik strongly indicates that the Obama administration should stand on the sidelines and let Syria sort out its own internal divisions. Only if a direct threat to the U.S should arise once the desert dust has settled, should the U.S. make strategic strikes to eliminate the facilities and the individuals that constitute the threat.