The Return of Sovereignty

Madeleine Albright's penned a not very enlightening op-ed bemoaning the return of sovereignty and the "death of intervention" in the wake of Iraq. Near the end she says:

The global conscience is not asleep, but after the turbulence of recent years, it is profoundly confused. Some governments will oppose any exceptions to the principle of sovereignty because they fear criticism of their own policies. Others will defend the sanctity of sovereignty unless and until they again have confidence in the judgment of those proposing exceptions.

At the heart of the debate is the question of what the international system is. Is it just a collection of legal nuts and bolts cobbled together by governments to protect governments? Or is it a living framework of rules intended to make the world a more humane place?

I think that second paragraph would do well to take the previous paragraph more seriously. The issue at stake is much, much, much less a question of principle than it is a question of practice. I think it's very easy to conclude that the abstract moral logic of sovereignty-over-all is grossly wrongheaded. But the real issue of how U.S. government policy should be impacted by moral universalism is a practical problem. In the wake of Iraq, few people around the world think "America is sovereign, and also can invade other countries whenever it wants to, but other countries can't do that" is a viable governing principle for the world order. So insofar as people would like to see certain international norms enforced, actual work needs to be done to make that possible.

Meanwhile, it's always worth resisting this impulse to identify humanitarianism with the cause of invasions. Being open to immigration and imported goods helps foreigners, costs us nothing, and tends to advance the cause of peace. Preserving good relations between the great powers has major humanitarian benefits as the post-cold war decline in global conflict continues apace. Programs to hand out mosquito nets help people. It's a kind of madness to assume that military coercion is the be-all and end-all of human betterment.

Comments

Of course, the basic problem with all this BS is that there does not exist an international community with shared norms and values.

Consequently there exist no recognized moral norms or values to which one nation can legitimately appeal when intervening in the affairs of another.

Particularly when the inevitable consequence of intervention is dead civilians whose only crime was living in the wrong country.

Posted by Adam | June 11, 2008 3:06 PM

Of course, the basic problem with all this BS is that there does not exist an international community with shared norms and values.

Consequently there exist no recognized moral norms or values to which one nation can legitimately appeal when intervening in the affairs of another.

Particularly when the inevitable consequence of intervention is dead civilians whose only crime was living in the wrong country.

Posted by Adam | June 11, 2008 3:07 PM

Being open to immigration and imported goods helps foreigners, costs us nothing, and tends to advance the cause of peace.

Costs us nothing? Who are you fooling? It drives down wages. It also has an effect when, like now, unemployment is heading a lot higher. Look, you can say overall it is a good thing, just don't pretend there are no costs to it.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | June 11, 2008 3:11 PM

imagine, this woman was secretary of state once. guess we dodged a bullet.

Posted by benjoya | June 11, 2008 3:15 PM

I don't know. Maybe when you don't seem to care that your policies cause half a million children to die, other contries might be a little reluctant to give you carte blanche when it comes to overriding sovereignty.

Posted by blah | June 11, 2008 3:31 PM

Of course, the basic problem with all this BS is that there does not exist an international community with shared norms and values.

I think your claim is ridiculous, on its face.

Check out Alexander Wendt's work on the subject! We live in anarchy, sure, but there are more developed shades of anarchy than the (primitive) Hobbesian hue.

Posted by Kyle | June 11, 2008 3:44 PM

Good critique. But Matt, what's wrong with sovereignty? Yeah, Myanmar and Zimbabwe and the like abuse it heinously, but when exactly did violating sovereignty by invading a non-aggressor just because it was doing terrible things at home ever make the world a better place? Lesse... Kosovo. That's about the only time. Bosnia '95 was an example of Serbian aggression against its neighbors. Afghanistan '01 was in response to a direct attack. Haiti '94 was a US intervention to defend a sovereign democratic leader against a coup. In each case principle of sovereignty was being UPHELD, not violated. Meanwhile, "preemptive" invasions like Iraq were disasters, humanitarian interventions like Somalia likewise, and if we'd invaded Burma last month, it would have been a more nightmarish quagmire than anything I've previously listed.

Sovereignty! An underrated gem.

Posted by joeskeys2thegame | June 11, 2008 3:50 PM

Good critique. But Matt, what's wrong with sovereignty? Yeah, Myanmar and Zimbabwe and the like abuse it heinously, but when exactly did violating sovereignty by invading a non-aggressor just because it was doing terrible things at home ever make the world a better place? Lesse... Kosovo. That's about the only time. Bosnia '95 was an example of Serbian aggression against its neighbors. Afghanistan '01 was in response to a direct attack. Haiti '94 was a US intervention to defend a sovereign democratic leader against a coup. In each case principle of sovereignty was being UPHELD, not violated. Meanwhile, "preemptive" invasions like Iraq were disasters, humanitarian interventions like Somalia likewise, and if we'd invaded Burma last month, it would have been a more nightmarish quagmire than anything I've previously listed.

Sovereignty! An underrated gem.

Posted by joeskeys2thegame | June 11, 2008 3:52 PM

Okay...but, but but--Albright was addressing in the first instance the appalling callousness of the Burmese junta and that of the international community in failing to challenge their disregard for the lives of their own people in their millions.

Just as the peace of the dead in Rwanda has some Somali warlords to thank, so do perishing Irrawaddy villagers have our current foreign-policy impasse, in the wake of the Iraq debacle, to thank for their all-too-brief fates.

That don't make it right.

Posted by elle loco | June 11, 2008 3:53 PM

I actually did my law school paper on the viability of "humanitarian military intervention" under the auspices of international law. The question was whether -- under the principles of international law as it was perceived to exist at the time (1992) military intervention against a sovereign nation could ever be justified because it was for "humanitarian" purposes.

No need to recite the full legal argument here, but I came down thinking that "Yes, military intervention for humanitarian purposes can be legal under the understood principles of international law, but only under a couple of fairly extreme conditions."

In a nutshell, because the evolving state of international law tends to view the sovereignty of a government as legitimate only to the extent it represents the will of the people being governed, then when a government starts eliminating huge swathes of those people, the government can be presumed to be illegitimate. Stands to reason: if you are killing a large amount of your "people," then the "people" obviously don't support your government. Hence, the government is illegitimate -- i.e., not properly "sovereign" -- and can be removed to restore legitimate sovereignty, i.e., the will of the "people."

The practical result is that legitimate cases for humanitarian intervention only come into existence very, very rarely: either actual, intentional genocide -- like the gas chambers in WWII Germany -- or the intentional infliction of starvation of large numbers of people through inaction.

And I want to especially note, that NEITHER situation obtained in Iraq. Saddam Hussein might have "gassed his own people," but he was doing so not because he wanted to commit genocide, but only because he wanted to hold onto power and those people were rebelling against his power. It was brutal and indefensible, but it does NOT fall within the scenarios I outlined in my law school paper as justifying a disregard for the otherwise sovereign nature of the established government.

(It especially would not have justified the US intervention given that the acts that were always pointed out as justifying our invasion had all occurred 12 years in the past; the US military might be the world's ultimate fighting force, but even it cannot go back in time. We obviously could not justify invading Iraq to stop a gassing that had taken place more than a decade before our invasion.)

Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to make the point that while "humanitarian military intervention" has become a phrase to be mocked in light of the Iraq debacle, it should not be. It should merely be understood to be an appropriate response to extremely, extremely rare circumstances . . . . circumstances that Iraq did not present.

Posted by swellsman | June 11, 2008 4:06 PM

I actually did my law school paper on the viability of "humanitarian military intervention" under the auspices of international law. The question was whether -- under the principles of international law as it was perceived to exist at the time (1992) military intervention against a sovereign nation could ever be justified because it was for "humanitarian" purposes.

No need to recite the full legal argument here, but I came down thinking that "Yes, military intervention for humanitarian purposes can be legal under the understood principles of international law, but only under a couple of fairly extreme conditions."

In a nutshell, because the evolving state of international law tends to view the sovereignty of a government as legitimate only to the extent it represents the will of the people being governed, then when a government starts eliminating huge swathes of those people, the government can be presumed to be illegitimate. Stands to reason: if you are killing a large amount of your "people," then the "people" obviously don't support your government. Hence, the government is illegitimate -- i.e., not properly "sovereign" -- and can be removed to restore legitimate sovereignty, i.e., the will of the "people."

The practical result is that legitimate cases for humanitarian intervention only come into existence very, very rarely: either actual, intentional genocide -- like the gas chambers in WWII Germany -- or the intentional infliction of starvation of large numbers of people through inaction.

And I want to especially note, that NEITHER situation obtained in Iraq. Saddam Hussein might have "gassed his own people," but he was doing so not because he wanted to commit genocide, but only because he wanted to hold onto power and those people were rebelling against his power. It was brutal and indefensible, but it does NOT fall within the scenarios I outlined in my law school paper as justifying a disregard for the otherwise sovereign nature of the established government.

(It especially would not have justified the US intervention given that the acts that were always pointed out as justifying our invasion had all occurred 12 years in the past; the US military might be the world's ultimate fighting force, but even it cannot go back in time. We obviously could not justify invading Iraq to stop a gassing that had taken place more than a decade before our invasion.)

Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to make the point that while "humanitarian military intervention" has become a phrase to be mocked in light of the Iraq debacle, it should not be. It should merely be understood to be an appropriate response to extremely, extremely rare circumstances . . . . circumstances that Iraq did not present.

Posted by swellsman | June 11, 2008 4:08 PM

I actually did my law school paper on the viability of "humanitarian military intervention" under the auspices of international law. The question was whether -- under the principles of international law as it was perceived to exist at the time (1992) military intervention against a sovereign nation could ever be justified because it was for "humanitarian" purposes.

No need to recite the full legal argument here, but I came down thinking that "Yes, military intervention for humanitarian purposes can be legal under the understood principles of international law, but only under a couple of fairly extreme conditions."

In a nutshell, because the evolving state of international law tends to view the sovereignty of a government as legitimate only to the extent it represents the will of the people being governed, then when a government starts eliminating huge swathes of those people, the government can be presumed to be illegitimate. Stands to reason: if you are killing a large amount of your "people," then the "people" obviously don't support your government. Hence, the government is illegitimate -- i.e., not properly "sovereign" -- and can be removed to restore legitimate sovereignty, i.e., the will of the "people."

The practical result is that legitimate cases for humanitarian intervention only come into existence very, very rarely: either actual, intentional genocide -- like the gas chambers in WWII Germany -- or the intentional infliction of starvation of large numbers of people through inaction.

And I want to especially note, that NEITHER situation obtained in Iraq. Saddam Hussein might have "gassed his own people," but he was doing so not because he wanted to commit genocide, but only because he wanted to hold onto power and those people were rebelling against his power. It was brutal and indefensible, but it does NOT fall within the scenarios I outlined in my law school paper as justifying a disregard for the otherwise sovereign nature of the established government.

(It especially would not have justified the US intervention given that the acts that were always pointed out as justifying our invasion had all occurred 12 years in the past; the US military might be the world's ultimate fighting force, but even it cannot go back in time. We obviously could not justify invading Iraq to stop a gassing that had taken place more than a decade before our invasion.)

Sorry for the long comment, but I wanted to make the point that while "humanitarian military intervention" has become a phrase to be mocked in light of the Iraq debacle, it should not be. It should merely be understood to be an appropriate response to extremely, extremely rare circumstances . . . . circumstances that Iraq did not present.

Posted by swellsman | June 11, 2008 4:08 PM

"America...can invade other countries whenever it wants to..." ??!!

A new low, Matt. Even the most hare-brained net-addicted college punk should know better. To suggest that this, or anything remotely like it, has been US policy represents the Quisling press at its most egregious.

Perhaps you were too busy watching cartoons to notice that Iraq had launched wars of aggression that killed over a million people; committed genocide; developed banned weapons and used them to kill tens of thousands of people; sponsored terrorism; acted to restrain trade by, among other things, rocketing supertankers; and directly relevant to our actions, invaded, raped, and annexed UN member and US ally Kuwait, then proceeded to comprehensively violate the ceasefire agreement that resulted from their expulsion. Then there were the world-record number of violated Chapter VII Resolutions, the attempt to exterminate the Marsh Arabs along with their entire ecosystem...well, one could go on, but what's the point?

Idiots like Matt have so distorted the facts in this case that the world is much safer today for the would-be Mugabes and Pol Pots around the world. Fine work!

Posted by robert powell | June 11, 2008 4:21 PM

Albright bombed and invaded Yugoslavia in 1999 over actions taking place solely within Yugoslavia's internationally recognized borders. That established a precedent for the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 11, 2008 4:41 PM

As exemplified by some of the comments above, the problem is a stupid reference to the principle of sovereignty to oppose any and all interventions. This is just stupid. Whether or not an intervention on humanitarian grounds is a good idea in pragmatic terms is an open, case-by-case, question. But anyone who justifies a decision not to intervene something like a genocide on the basis of "sovereignty" is disingenuous (most likely), secretly concerned with their own country's "right" to behave badly without external pressure (also very common), or just simple-minded.

It seems especially odd to me from a leftist perspective, which has always (until recently) preferred an internationalist stance that looks to worldwide social justice and not an extreme relativism that says that individual nation states can do whatever they want, internally.

The invasion of Iraq was a bad idea for practical reasons and not justified on a humanitarian basis. Which isn't to say that conditions were good within Iraq, but to say that they weren't exceptionally bad and obviously not better after the invasion, except in a symbolic sense that matter little to most Iraqis.

But intervention in conflicts like Bosnia were warranted and made practical sense. If there were something that could be done in Sudan—that is, a practical plan with a decent chance of success—it should be done, also.

I don't deny that the inteventionist left, exemplified by Albright and average people like myself, should take the disaster of Iraq to be an edifying object lesson in the failures of leftist military interventionism. But we shouldn't throw that option out the window, as so many on the left now assert we should do. And, in the past and much worse so today, there's been a knee-jerk resistance to any sort of intervention regardless of the practical arguments. The opposition to interventionism has been as simple-minded and irrational as the support for it has been. People seem to have an irrational, pre-existing bias either for or against military actions and they justify that bias after the fact. This and the resulting dialog is what I wish we could get beyond.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | June 11, 2008 4:48 PM

Matt writes : "America is sovereign, and also can invade other countries whenever it wants to..."

Robert Powell responds: "Perhaps you were too busy watching cartoons to notice that Iraq had launched wars of aggression that killed over a million people; committed genocide; developed banned weapons and used them to kill tens of thousands of people; ... and directly relevant to our actions, invaded, raped, and annexed UN member and US ally Kuwait, then proceeded to comprehensively violate the ceasefire agreement that resulted from their expulsion. Then there were the world-record number of violated Chapter VII Resolutions..."

I obviously missed the part where any of this
gave us the right to invade Iraq.

We invaded because some people thought that "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

Seriously Robert, if you really think that anybody in the Bush administration gave two shits about Iraq going to war with Iran, gassed the Kurds or that Saddam thumbed his nose at the United Nations, then I've got some swampland I'm thinking of selling that you might want to consider.

Posted by dj spellchecka | June 11, 2008 4:59 PM

Matt: "It's a kind of madness to assume that military coercion is the be-all and end-all of human betterment."

Yeah, but let there be a mere rumor (or better yet, an outright LIE) of somebody having nuclear weapons, and Matt's right there for the invasion.

First Iraq, now Iran.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 11, 2008 5:56 PM

Being open to immigration and imported goods helps foreigners, costs us nothing, and tends to advance the cause of peace.

BS.

Posted by Glaivester | June 11, 2008 5:56 PM

Particularly when the inevitable consequence of intervention is dead civilians whose only crime was living in the wrong country.
Posted by Adam

Except your inane point is undermined by noting that humanitarian interventions are meant to stop local rulers from killing civilians whose only crime was living in the wrong country.

We now know the power not just of totalitarian and undemocratic governments banding together to block any intervention, but the immense power of bribery to subvert democratic spheres of power like the UN, France, on paper democratic but astonishingly corrupt Russia - as witnessed in the Oil for Food program Saddam subverted into a means to preserve his dictatorship and shed Sanctions..

Equally corrosive, and effectively dooming Sudan and Zimbabwe from being rescued by a consortium of progressive nations, is the notion - pushed by the Left - that sovereignity is so important that no intervention can happen without the assent of key nations with contempt for human rights elsewhere and even at home. Meaning Russia, China, and whatever totalitarian or primitive nations are on the Security Council. Recent Council member Senegal had major powers competing to bribe the leader, then the leader's witch doctor..

Albright's editorial is excellent.

THE Burmese government’s criminally neglectful response to last month’s cyclone, and the world’s response to that response, illustrate three grim realities today: totalitarian governments are alive and well; their neighbors are reluctant to pressure them to change; and the notion of national sovereignty as sacred is gaining ground, helped in no small part by the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq. Indeed, many of the world’s necessary interventions in the decade before the invasion — in places like Haiti and the Balkans — would seem impossible in today’s climate.

So when you see a Lefty blubbering about "How awful it is that WE are doing nothing about noble, innocent Congolese dying in the millions and how WE should do something" - you are looking at, besides the homicidal rulers themselves and their allied cronies in other governments - the prime culprits.

The end result, until the Left in the West comes to it's senses, is that totalitarian nations, now unaccountable - will flourish and inspire other governments to emulate their neighbor's rulers job security and ability to plunder a nation for their personal gain...and fear no International Law..because the sovereignity defense blocks all outsiders from effecting arrests and serving warrants.

Posted by chris ford | June 11, 2008 6:04 PM

Kosovo was open to immigration, too. Look where it got them- Albanian conquest. And I don't see that Mexican peasants have been much helped by NAFTA- quite the opposite.

Openness to immigration and foreign goods helps the elites in America, and the elites in the Third World. I suppose Matt considers himself in that group, but there's no reason that people of conscience ought to swallow this rootless cosmopolitan BS.

Posted by Hector | June 11, 2008 6:23 PM

The really hilarious thing about Albright's career was that her lifelong obsession was with the Munich Agreement in 1938 where big countries got together and sliced up her father's sovereign state of Czechoslovakia and gave the ethnic minority border region away.

So, what's her big accomplishment when she gets power? She gets big countries together and slices up another central European sovereign state and gives the ethnic minority border region away!

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 11, 2008 6:32 PM

So the Republicans support invading other countries and torturing our enemies, and the Democrats are a lot better because only half of them support invading other countries, and they support really much less torture. I guess the Democratic crusaders think their intentions are good. But the Republicans think their intentions are good too. It's interesting how evil works. Innocent familes lose their homes, their jobs, their limbs, and their lives because some Americans wanted to kill the bad guys.

Posted by Gary Sugar | June 11, 2008 7:19 PM

Albright logic:

Killing 500,000 Iraqi children through sanctions? "a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it."

(note: one might quibble over the numbers and causation of all those deaths, but Albright didn't)

Failing to launch costly invasions in the hopes of stopping other governments from interfering with cyclone relief? A confusion of the global conscience.

In fairness, I should note that the Stahl interview that lead to the first quote is from '96, twelve years before today's op-ed, so maybe her views have changed and she regrets the sanctions regime.

Albright also tried to recruit Condi Rice into the Dukakis campaign in 1987.

Posted by Julian Elson | June 11, 2008 10:30 PM

"Being open to immigration and imported goods helps foreigners, costs us nothing..."

Costs us nothing? The arrogance of this statement is breathtaking.

Posted by scottynx | June 12, 2008 12:07 AM

"Albright also tried to recruit Condi Rice into the Dukakis campaign in 1987.

Posted by Julian Elson | June 11, 2008 10:30 PM"

In both of their defenses, Rice was a realist back then being groomed by Scowcroft. She is also rather liberal on social issues (abortion, affirmative action) and could have easily become a Feinstein-style conservative Democratic under different circumstances.
Albright here presents a false dichotomy: either sovereignty must be upheld and humanitarians must cease or vice versa. The problem with Albright is that she is such an ideologue that she has the same response to every problem (invade) and assumes that those who are opposed to certain interventions, especially those who talk about sovereignty, must be opposed to all humanitarian interventions (such people do exist, of course, but not everyone opposed to the Iraq War fits into this camp). For instance, I feel that Rwanda's military gave up any right to sovereignty over Rwanda as a whole when it launched the anti-Tutu genocide (and Rwandan sovereignty probably didn't fully exist anyway because the president's plane blew up and the vice president was killed instead of assuming office, so no real government recognized by most countries was in charge).

However, if Rwanda was big enough, powerful enough and internally complex enough that intervening would obviously become a military disaster, intervening would have been foolish on logistical grounds. There are simply not enough troops in the world to successfully topple all of the bad governments out there that starve their people or commit genocide. Occupying such countries would be even harder. So many interventionists just seem to assume that logistical problems will melt away in the face of good intentions.

Posted by Reality Man | June 12, 2008 1:09 AM

Of course, that should be "it launched the anti-Tutsi genocide" not the "it launched the anti-Tutu genocide."

Posted by Reality Man | June 12, 2008 1:14 AM

djspellchecka--
In Louisiana a lot of our swampland has oil and natural gas underneath. Send me the details. My training and experience prevent me from drawing too many conclusions based on the apparent ability of some to read the minds of, for example, the Bush Administration. Sticking to the facts:

What "gave us the right to invade Iraq" was its invasion of Kuwait, and comprehensive violation of the ceasefire and related Chapter VII Resolutions that resulted. But what gave us the INCENTIVE to invade Iraq was a very large collection of factors that included along with the humanitarian concerns Iraq's key location in terms of vital commodities and crucial trade routes; and its geopolitical position relative to Islamic extremism, and Israel; its role as a precedent in terms of the established post-war international security architecture, for which it represented the gravest threat since 1950.

As others have pointed out, practical considerations are key here. Congo is fucked no matter what, because no one can even begin to calculate what would be required or how we might be able to succeed. Ditto Burma, Zimbabwe, and others. Kosovo and Bosnia were doable, in no small measure because we had troops a day's drive away who could have at any point, as they belatedly did, stop the killing. We could have deployed in taxi cabs.

Posted by robert powell | June 12, 2008 2:40 AM

Powell spouts this mindless bullshit:

"Iraq's key location in terms of vital commodities and crucial trade routes; and its geopolitical position relative to Islamic extremism, and Israel; its role as a precedent in terms of the established post-war international security architecture, for which it represented the gravest threat since 1950."

This fucktard has to be working for the CIA - nobody else can spread such utter content-less horseshit in such terminology.

Iraq as the gravest threat to international security since 1950? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! What a fucking steaming, smelly mass of horseshit!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 12, 2008 4:13 AM

Hello:

Sovereignty is a serious issue in a world where some people feel the need to help others because their government won't (or at least won't help to the extent that the outside government feels is sufficient).

However, how would we have reacted if China or India (not another Anglo country - to keep the analogy to Burma in tact) landed in New Orleans after Katrina because they felt that our government failed to help, or worse, was refusing to act?

I expect that many in the US would have been dead-set against it. Many would stand up as champions of sovereignty and criticizing intervention by an outside entity.

Of course the analogy is imperfect because we are the stronger country and its not the same as the US entering Burma.

The bottom line seems to be that we either need to recognize sovereignty and respect it (thereby refusing to interfere).

However, the real action needs to be the encouragement of a more enlightened government in countries where we feel their actions are so wrong as to rise to level of a government we feel is unacceptable and to take those actions everyday rather then face it during a catastrophe.

Posted by Splotto | June 12, 2008 10:03 AM

Mr. Powell: "What "gave us the right to invade Iraq" was its invasion of Kuwait, and comprehensive violation of the ceasefire and related Chapter VII Resolutions that resulted."

hardly. we made Iraq un-invade Kuwait. story over.
except for the faithful few who thought we should have invaded in 1991, installed Swartzcroft as
emir of Baghdad and simply cause the civil war a decade early. not a popular position.

Robert again: "But what gave us the INCENTIVE to invade Iraq was a very large collection of factors that included along with the humanitarian concerns Iraq's key location in terms of vital commodities and crucial trade routes; and its geopolitical position relative to Islamic extremism, and Israel; its role as a precedent in terms of the established post-war international security architecture, for which it represented the gravest threat since 1950."

Are you arguing that "Iraq's key location in terms of vital commodities" means we had the incentive to invade to grab their oil?
if not, what do you mean?

does "and its geopolitical position relative to Islamic extremism," mean its proximity to Saudi Arabia, where the 9/11 terrorists came from and/or its proximity to Pakistan where the 9/11
terrorist organization hang out? and does that mean we should be attacking those countries now that they're close? if not, what do you mean?

R.P.:"its role as a precedent in terms of the established post-war international security architecture, for which it represented the gravest threat since 1950." aren't you forgetting China and the Soviet Union?

"As others have pointed out, practical considerations are key here." in my view,
nobody in the bush administration correctly predicted the "practical considerations" needed to deal with post-Saddam Iraq. hence the clusterfuck we find ourselves in.

ps. seriously, i appreciate your civil response.

Posted by dj spellchecka | June 12, 2008 2:40 PM

dj--
The UN Resolution that authorized the invasion of Iraq in 1991 stipulated that this was to eject Iraq from Kuwait, AND "to return the region to peace and stability". The latter was initially addressed by Resolution 678 as a ceasefire agreement. Iraq comprehensively violated it, as well as the subsequent related Resolutions. It can hardly be said that the second part of the initial authorization had been achieved when we were conducting on-going combat operations in, around, and over Iraq dropping bombs and dodging missiles in order to enforce an embargo that ultimately killed about a million Iraqis.

If we had overturned the regime in 1991 there might have been a civil war, but probably not given that we had about three times the number of troops on the ground then; the Shi'ites hadn't been subjected to the murderous repression that followed our call for them to "rise up"; and the nation would not yet have been nearly destroyed and greatly embittered by the sanctions regime.

On "key location", I'm arguing that Iraq's behavior had disrupted the world economy in very serious ways, and under Saddam bid fair to continue or do even worse. Oil is the lifeblood of the world economy. It's not a matter of "grabbing" it--oil is willingly sold by its producers, and at a pretty hefty price these days. But with a state like Iraq capable of rocketing supertankers, invading the neighbors, and torching oilfields as it had done, their was a loaded gun pointed at the head of the entire industrialized world. That's why countries like Japan and South Korea supported the invasion, and others like China were prepared to go along.

Iraq is a key state in the Islamic world, as recognized by Al Qaeda among others. Converting it from an implacable enemy to a democracy allied with us against terrorism was seen by many as an appropriate response to 9/11 in much the same way FDR saw attacking Italian and Vichy French troops in North Africa as an appropriate response to Pearl Harbor.

China and the Soviet Union had no, zero, outstanding Chapter VII Resolutions against them. These Resolutions represent the only difference between the UN and the League of Nations, which contributed to the start of WWII by being unable to enforce its resolutions.

I think there can be no argument with your statement about the performance of the Bush administration in terms of post-Saddam Iraq.

Posted by robert powell | June 13, 2008 2:21 AM

The world is complicit with Mugabe in causing children to suffer. I have been to rural areas nearby and families who rely on CARE are already starving yet the world is dining with the dictator Mugabe in Rome. Ironically, the summit is on food shortages yet Mugabe is denying people food which is not his. The world has no teeth at all.
Leopold, Zvishavane, Zimbabwe

It is unfortunate that the old man who purports so strongly to be a good leader turns a blind eye on how the people he rules are suffering. Even worse he refuses them access to food from well wishers.
Pride, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe

I am speechless, no one cares after all we are Africans so let them die.
Ruth, Harare, Zimbabwe

Mugabe is trying all means so that he can rule this country. We are desperate here. I urge the UN to come and see what is happening. I can't even go to my rural home to see my parents because people are tortured there by ZANU PF thugs.
Fungai, Harare, Zimbabwe

It is good Mugabe is doing this. Zimbabweans have had it good all these years, maybe now they will get up their fat asses and fight for what's right.
Thezimbo, Harare, Zimbabwe

We could have the whole thing sorted out by the end of the month if the first world threatened to take the 2010 World Cup from South Africa, in light of its total disregard for law and order, democracy and it recent xenophobic attacks. Thabo Mbeki would be thrown out of office in milliseconds and someone less infatuated with Bob would be ushered in. Thabo Mbeki is probably the only person more hated than Bob in Zimbabwe.
Frank, Harare, Zimbabwe

The situation is really getting out of hand. We rely on you guys to stop the brutality of the hardhearted dictator Mugabe. Imagine millions of people are going to die of hunger and beatings. I urge you people to stop talking and start acting because innocent people are dying every day. Mugabe must go and peace will then reign.
Ayanda, Harare, Zimbabwe

We are all - white and black - living a living hell in Zimbabwe unless a new government takes over, and it must take place now not tomorrow. It will be to late as a lot of people are suffering not only not having food, but also by the trained people of the present government.
Annoula, Beitbridge, Zimbabwe

Yglesias, no one is arguing that military intervention is the answer to all humanitarian crises, but how many have to suffer and die for your ideology. A half a million, a million – when, as a human being, do you feel inclined to act. Progressives listen to your words, but you sit in opposition to helping the poor and suffering you claim to represent. Who will help these people? You not only ignore their cries; you are an advocate for deafness to their suffering. Your writing could have helped these people, but you chose domestic political supremacy over mankind.
I have just one question:
If the short term invasion had ended with the Munich Agreement, would you have let the Final Solution come to fruition in the controlled territory?

Posted by cfpete | June 13, 2008 1:05 PM