Regime-Change Wars

A 19th Century British political cartoon.

I like the sincerity of Tulsi Gabbard. I believe she would be the strongest candidate for the Democrats against Donald Trump. And I think she is being treated dishonestly by a corrupt Democratic Party establishment and media. 

But what about the merits of her central issue, ending American involvement in “regime-change wars”?

She has a point in international law, or what international law said until Kosovo. Until then, intervening in another country’s internal politics, no matter what, was considered unprovoked aggression.

But then there was the Rwandan holocaust, and opinion shifted to holding France morally responsible for not intervening.

I at first resisted this new principle, that there was an obligation upon other nations to intervene in defense of human rights. I was, on reflection, wrong.

This, after all, is the same moral principle as our obligation to intervene if we see someone being raped or stabbed or beaten up. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.”

So it follows that America, because it has the capability, has the moral obligation to intervene against any regime that is flagrantly violating the human rights of either its own or some other people. It is not okay to gas Jews. It is not okay to stand aside and let it happen. Sorry, Tulsi.

I believe Gabbard sincerely sees it differently, for the simple reason that she is a Hindu.

Hinduism or Buddhism can endlessly tolerate injustice without a moral obligation to intervene because of the doctrine of karma. If someone is being raped or stabbed or otherwise viciously mistreated, if some group is being systematically wiped doubt, it is no doubt just reward for some terrible thing they have done in a past life. No injustice is possible; no cause for us to get involved.

I leave the reader to decide how they feel about this stance; but from it follows the conclusion, for example, that having a criminal justice system is illegitimate.

Gabbard and her supporters would no doubt go on to argue that recent “regime change” wars have not just been costly, but have not worked. They will cite Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have actually had several recent case studies, since this new doctrine has become accepted: Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

In the first case, the Western allies stayed on to establish stability, and, after some years, Kosovo has emerged as a functioning multi-party democracy. In Kosovo, it seems that the “regime change” war did work. One might also mention the postwar experience with Germany, Japan, or Italy, although WWII was not just a “regime change” war.

In the second case, Iraq, some stability did seem to have been achieved, after some years of struggle, then lost by what looks like a premature US departure. After some limited re-engagement, Iraq looks more stable. In Afghanistan, relatively low-level conflict continues. In these two cases, long-term results cannot really be determined.

Appalled by the cost of these two interventions, however, when things then turned nasty internally in Libya, the West tried a different tack: go in, take out the regime, and leave. This is, to be honest, what I too thought would be the better policy. You can lead a nation to democracy, but you cannot force them to be democrats. It’s a contradiction in terms.

But this approach seems to have turned out worse: Libya remains in chaos, and human rights abuses remain common.

Disappointed again, when Syria then went south, the West reverted to the old, pre-Rwanda approach: do nothing.

And this has worked out worst of all: an ongoing holocaust of historic proportions, a refugee crisis flooding the borders of Europe, and the intervention of other foreign powers less friendly to human rights: Russia, Iran. As none have the strength to force a resolution, conflict looks to continue indefinitely.

So we’ve tried all the possible approaches, and in terms of defending human rights, the option of intervention, however costly, is visibly the best.

Americans, of course, are historically tempted to ignore the rest of the world’s problems, protected they are by oceans vast and deep. That may or may not be wise—but it is not the moral way.

Those alert to history may realize that Britain, in the nineteenth century, faced the same choice. Protecting the human rights of foreigners was actually the sentiment upon which was built much of the British Empire. Britain spent a lot of "blood and treasure," as the modern clichéd usage goes, ending the slave trade, thuggery, piracy, suttee, the caste system, banditry, endless local conflicts, and the like.

Honesty compels us to admit that, no so uncommonly, colonialism is actually a good idea.