REPORT: THE DEAD HORSE OF LIBERAL INTERVENTIONISM

It seems that more people are kicking at the long-dead horse of liberal interventionism. According to the Guardian's Simon Jenkins,  liberal interventionism is supposedly responsible for all manner of ills from the invasion of Iraq to the Russia-Georgia war. Jenkins' viewpoint is an article of faith in some circles. Depending on your domestic political orientation (American or British), it is either the pro-war liberals of the Christopher Hitchens/Dissent clique or the signatories of the Euston Manifesto/publishers of Democratiya who paved the way for the Iraq war.

Such an analysis both factually wrongheaded and practically useless. To this day, the real reasons behind the Iraq war remain cloaked in mystery. Was it geopolitical power projection? Oil? Internal American politics dynamics? A sincere belief that Hussein had to be eliminated for the good of the world polity? Neoconservative ideology? One thing is for sure--a bunch of sharply worded essays penned by "drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay[s]" did not persuade George W. Bush to invade Iraq. Nor was the war sold as a means of helping Iraqis, it was the WMDs. It is true that humanitarian reasoning was employed by the administration as a means of retaining public support for the continuing American presence in Iraq, but we must remember that Bush and his advisers' antipathy for "nation-building" was so great that such a massive commitment was practically forced upon him by events.

Nor does humanitarian intervention have much to do with the war in Georgia. NATO's intervention in Kosovo was part of a string of incidents that Russians perceived as encroachments--NATO eastern expansion, the exploitation of the Russian economy by American robber barons, and the "color" Revolutions in Russia's near abroad being the most prominent. The Kosovars themselves were pawns in the game, and it is highly fallacious to equate their independence with Russia's support of the South Ossetians and other breakaway regions in Georgia. What mattered more was the fact that Russia was humiliated--it could not do a thing to stop NATO from crushing an ally and fellow Slavic state.

I am no friend of the likes of Hitchens, Paul Berman, and Kanan Makiya. As ideas have consequences, they do bear some small responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves faced with in the Middle East. But there is also a real danger that the de-legitimizing of humanitarian intervention and human rights by the Left and the Third-World will reinforce the rising authoritarian capitalist rule-set and undermine whatever precious little will the international community has to actually enforce the "Responsibility to Protect" against the dictators and rapacious non-state murderers of the global South. One of the opportunity costs of Iraq was Darfur and Burma. I am not suggesting that intervention there would be wise--in Burma the situation certainly did not favor intervention, and Darfur at present is beyond the ability of Western political and military instruments. It is a moot point regardless, there is hardly the resources or political will to do anything about it.

Comments

[Aaron]

Speaking for the 'left', the idea of 'liberal interventionism' is alive and well, thank you very much, and no one considers Iraq to be part of it.
At it's core liberal interventionism is based on a rational analysis that an action, such as intervening in kosovo or in darfur, is worth it.
Neo-cons and neo imperialists are not interested in a rational analysis, instead they are doing a 'faith based' analysis. Targets are chosen (by the neos) based on personal factors (revenge, haliburton profits, oil profits, gop political profits) rather then on an analysis of the national good.

[Aaron]

sorry I meant to say "risk (to American lives, the lives of the locals, equipment, and influence) v. the rewards (such as lives saved)" rather then "national good".

This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of the factors worth considering.

[A.E.]

No, don't worry about exhaustive lists. The more evidence for argument, the better.