Some of the best analysis of political issues on the net is contained at the site Baseball Crank. The site owner loves baseball and has many posts about it. I, to put it mildly, do not share this passion. However, I do read each of his non-sports post with keen interest. In regard to his perspective on the situation in Syria I found myself nodding repeatedly as I read it:
There are many good reasons to wish to be rid of the brutal Assad regime, long an Iranian proxy, sponsor of Hezbollah, supporter of the insurgency against the U.S. in Iraq, shelterer (and maybe backer) of culprits in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines, oppressor of Lebanon and assassin of its prime minister, enemy of Israel and perpetrator of serial massacres against its own people. But it seems increasingly likely that the alternatives to Assad would be even worse, ranging from domination of Syria by Al Qaeda and its Sunni extremist allies to splintering into an anarchic failed state. As it stands, the Syrian civil war is a proxy battle between Assad’s backers (Iran and Russia) and the backers of the rebel resistance (Saudi Arabia and Turkey). It doesn’t need more combatants who intend to show up, lob in a bunch of missiles and leave without resolving anything, and for the U.S. to control the post-Assad situation to our advantage would require a huge and for many reasons infeasible commitment of ground troops. We did that in Iraq in part so we would not have to do it again every time there was an opportunity to topple a dictator in the Greater Middle East – we can leave the locals to resolve these things themselves. Recent experiences in Egypt and Libya show that the public in the region hungers for change and a greater voice in how their countries are governed, but hardly inspire confidence that the results will be less anti-American or more respectful of individual liberty. The fact that Syria affects the interests of the U.S. and its allies does not mean that we currently have any options on the table that would advance those interests.
It is coherency that is most lacking and the lack of it is deeply troubling. I hear from many quarters that we “have a moral obligation” to deal Assad a blow because of his use of chemical weapons. There has been no attempt to articulate a national interest beyond a moral argument. If we HAVE such an obligation, it must be one that would commit us to stepping in every single time such atrocities occur. This would be new. We have let a great number of utterly diabolical acts go unrevenged. We did not intervene in a meaningful way in Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, South Africa (Apartheid), Tibet, or Georgia (former Soviet State, not the one with the kickass college football team) – to name a few. If we have a moral obligation, a duty to prevent such crimes against humanity, it must be a duty applicable to all like situations. If we don’t have a general duty then we don’t have this particular duty either. Coherency… If it is a duty now, it is a duty always. If it isn’t a duty always, it isn’t a duty now.
…who use the world’s most heinous weapons (scissors) against the world’s most vulnerable people (babies in the womb)…
Well said Lurch.
I suppose I’ll see you and President Obortion at the next pro-life rally.
Brutally accurate reminder Daledog.
David Spaulding overlooks the fact that all positive obligations are qualified, by time, place, circumstances, means and opportunity
No, Mr. Paterson-Seymour, with respect, I have not.
“Coherency” provides underlying principles on which decision-making is based, not specific answers. Different problems require different solutions but leadership absolutely requires thinking about the similarities of problems and articulating principles that underpin decisions.
In the instant case, the President is saying that we have a “moral obligation” to act. Curiously, he is also saying that 1) we know we won’t be unseating Assad in the process and 2) the missile strikes we contemplate likely will not eliminate the chemical weapons at the center of the dispute. If we aren’t taking out a tyrant for his tyranny and aren’t eliminating weapons he is alleged to have used against his people in order to prevent him from doing it again, what are we doing?
The only underlying principle articulated by the Administration is that “Assad has it coming and we it is a moral imperative to do something.” That sounds an awful lot like vengeance but let us leave that aside and say that it is merely a “show of force.” If the only underlying reason for acting is because our moral code demands a show of force then that show of force is demanded by all like problems – all situations in which a tyrannical regime murders innocent people in a brutal way. If that is what the President is saying and that is his policy then he should say so. I suspect it is not and that we won’t do anything for a like event in, say, North Korea or Uganda, or Central Asia.
I am calling for coherent policy, not a one-size-fits-all strategy. If you see it differently, please explain. I am willing to be convinced that there is a coherent foreign policy at work and I have stated my view. I cannot guess at what you see so you will have to state it if I am to understand and potentially change my view.
Even for very articulate people, some things are just very hard to articulate.
In the think-through process, carrying things to their iron clad logical extreme of “what ifs” and “if thens” is not helpful –Example: ” if…only underlying reason for acting is because our moral code demands a show of force then that show of force is demanded by all like problems ” I agree with MPS that there are modifiers- “time, place, circumstances, means and opportunity”
I also wonder about the vaunted principle of “What Is In It For Us”- not to demean the importance of national interest, but in some circumstances might there not be altruism ?
I don’t think it is an extreme to ask whether a principle as ambiguous as “moral duty” should apply broadly to outrageous conduct. If national interest is a proper modifier to a moral duty then the duty isn’t based on objective duties, it is just a way of describing that which makes this particular administration angry.
Would I have intervened in Uganda, Somalia, or the Darfur? probably not. National interest may be a floating concept and it surely isn’t grounded in anything approaching a science but it does require that one state that if A happens it will effect us. We can say, for example, that if Syria acquires nuclear weapons our options for influencing Syria’s activities are more limited and that our national interests in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel will be adversely affected. I don’t think I would have intervened in Uganda, Somalia, or the Darfur because I can’t think of how the evils done there affected our national interest.
The problem with “moral duty” as an organizing principle is that moral duties have a degree of absolutism to them that do not attend national interest. I have a moral duty, for example, to report a corrupt government official. Failing to do so is wrong. I have a self interest to report drug dealing on my block. Doing so is likely good for me. However, if I can’t move and there is drug dealing everywhere on my block and the drug dealers are known to retaliate against such reports and the police are not known to provide security for those who dime out drug dealers, my self interest may well suggest I should keep my mouth shut and spend my time figuring out how to move.
Moral duties are more absolute – not entirely… I am outraged by the situation in Tibet and there is something reprehensible about the situation in North Korea but I am not suggesting that attacking China is a good idea. If we follow the President’s articulation we do have such a duty.
It is well and good to describe things in moral terms but, if our nation isn’t going to use a consistent ethical construct to decide when and where to intervene in other nations’ affairs, it is a farce.
Effective foreign policy depends on effective communication of your nation’s interests and the seriousness with which they will be pursued. This happens at multiple levels.
For example, it has been related that President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to Iraq told Saddam Hussein that the dispute between Iraq and Kuwait should be settled among themselves. She neglected to stress that any settlement must be peaceful. This missed communication may have led Saddam to believe that the US would not react forcefully to his planned attack on Kuwait.
Coherency (based on consistent principles) makes these communications less risky. There is less chance to miss the overall direction and less chance that someone will incorrectly read between the lines. This applies to those who are carrying out our policy, as well as foreign governments trying to understand it.
Unfortunately, our ‘Smart Diplomacy’ ™ crowd does not have any understandable principles or coherency. Even the initial principles of ‘do the opposite of Bush’ have not held up. The impression is that they are making it up as they go along, as time permits, between rounds of golf and fundraising events.
This does not encourage foreign governments to carefully consider ‘what will the US do if we take this action?’ There is so little predictability that they might as well just go ahead and see what happens next.
That is an extremely helpful analysis and important point Mr. Tefft. It does, indeed, appear to me that the Administration is “making it up as [it] goes along;” hence my lack of faith that an appeal to moral duty is other than an after-the-fact justification.
It was a little easier during the Soviet era I think. The overarching concern was to contain Communism and, while there were lots of missed signals and armchair quarterbacking gives us many instances where the US’ interest would have been served better by a different choice, the overarching concern provided a framework for decision-making that lent considerable coherence to US policy. US policy across broad fronts: economics, foreign, military, etc. was able to coordinate to the overarching containment goals.
In fairness to administrations that have the misfortune of living a much more complex, multi-polar world in which US power and influence is both greatly diminished and diminishing farther, daily, there is no similarly overarching concern to swing US policy around. That reality makes it all the more important though for administrations to think abstractly about the principles that they use to determine US policy and to seek coherence.
“Moral obligation” is a poor choice to underpin policy choices because there are many evil things that we cannot do anything serious about and our unwillingness to address the evils done by powers that can hurt us makes our policy choices look like mere bullying. In the instant case, Assad did something really bad and so we are going to fire missiles at him and take no risks to vindicate that moral duty. However, we don’t dare do that in North Korea so those crimes will not be vindicated. What determines our action looks like an assessment of strength, not an assessment of moral duty.
David Spaulding
Two of the conditions of just war are:-
3. there must be serious prospects of success;
4. the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition” [CCC 2309].
These would obviously impose grave restrictions on the duty of humanitarian intervention, supposing it to exist.
Thank you for the Just War reminders. They are important to determining the scope of engagement. However, any duty we have to militarily engage in Syria must stem from our duty of Christian charity since no articulation of threat to the US or her interests has been proffered. I think the Just War teachings of the Church will become a significant issue if the Administration moves forward but I’d like to hear how they effect the decision of whether to vindicate our moral indignation at the chemical deaths of civilians in Syria.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all the posturing would morph into plain, concrete comfort aid and help for the victims and populations targeted for oppression (Christians and those in the wrong place at the wrong time)? I do not understand imposing more deaths in Syria.
David Spaulding writes “any duty we have to militarily engage in Syria must stem from our duty of Christian charity since no articulation of threat to the US or her interests has been proffered…”
I believe a case can be made that, in international law, intervention on humanitarian grounds may, and I stress may, constitute an exception to the general rule prohibiting interference in the internal affairs of another state. Now, the value of the general rule is obvious and, I believe any exception should be strictly construed. Respect for Public International Law, for the benefits it confers on people everywhere is no small part of Christian charity.
Again, the use of chemical and biological weapons are a special case, given the Geneva Protocol of 1925, of which Syria is a state party, although it has never ratified the UN Convention of 13 January 1993. However, most publicists believe that that convention left existing conventions intact.
I believe a case for intervention by any co-signatory of the 1925 protocol could be made; I might not find it particularly convincing myself, but that is by the by. Then again, I am a civilian, not a publicist
Now, that still leaves open the question of what intervention is justified; an embargo on precursors and delivery systems of chemical weapons, ratified by the Security Council, would not, I suggest, be controversial.
Pat raises a wider point. I would suggest that minorities often do better under despotic government, The history of the Jews under the Ottoman power demonstrate that despots can be cajoled or bribed and are also vulnerable to pressure from foreign powers, in a way that the mob is not.
MPS, you raise a point I hadn’t considered: that there is a legitimate international law ground on which to base an attack. Who determines the scope of obligation though for a treaty that pre-dates the UN? Is it up to each member state to determine for themselves what they wish to do? The Geneva Convention made chemical weapon use actionable but most member states, including the US and Russia, continued to develop and produce the weapons and delivery systems. It seems a bit two-faced to make weapons and yet say they should never be deployed. I’m not arguing for chemical weapons and I apologize if pointing that out deviates from the subject at hand but I wonder if a pre-NATO and pre-UN treaty is actionable when the underlying principles of it are so easily dispensed with by the parties that are expected to enforce it.
David Spaulding
The Geneva Protocol (Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare) of 1925, to which Syria is a party, bans the use of chemical weapons. It does not deal with research and development. Many if the early chemical weapons were by-products of the artificial dying industry. The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 (to which Syria is not a party) prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons.
The Geneva Protocol was established under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and it was registered with the League of Nations on 7 September 1929. Presumably, state signatories retain the same rights of enforcement that they had under the Hague Conventions.
Some publicists contend that the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Protocol, along with the Lieber Code are declaratory of customary international law and are binding, even on states that have not ratified them. I wonder if this applies to my personal favourite, Declaration (XIV) Prohibiting the Discharge of Projectiles and Explosives from Balloons “or by similar means.” The Hague, 18 October 1907. Based on the Russian circular note of 1898, it was ratified only by China, the US and the UK and was to be in force until the Third Peace Conference, which was never held.
The balloon problem may have resolved itself with the development of the V2 🙂
As applied to the present situation, how does this help us determine whether we have a “moral obligation” to “send a message” to Assad about the use of chemical weapons? I think we agree that the Just War teachings are binding once the decision to attack has been made. How do we determine though whether the only justification offered by the Administration – our “moral obligation” – is, in fact, an “obligation?”
If such an obligation exists, it must stem from our Christian duty of charity, not treaty since the Administration isn’t using any treaty obligations as their justification. How do we get from the duty to care for refugees and the hungry to the duty to pointlessly bomb a State to “send a message?”