Syrian
intervention risks upsetting global order
By Henry A. Kissinger, Published:
June 1
Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of
state from 1973 to 1977.
The Arab
Spring is generally discussed in terms of the prospects for democracy.
Equally significant is the increasing appeal — most recently in Syria — of
outside intervention to bring about regime change, overturning prevalent
notions of international order.
The Arab Spring was co-opted. Syria, as in the
civilians there, and Assad want regime change through international
intervention (at least of the NATO flavor) as much as most of us want a hole in
the head.
The modern concept of world order arose in 1648 from the Treaty of
Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. In that conflict, competing
dynasties sent armies across political borders to impose their conflicting
religious norms. This 17th-century version of regime change killed perhaps a
third of the population of Central Europe.
To prevent a repetition of this carnage, the Treaty of
Westphalia separated international from domestic politics. States, built on
national and cultural units, were deemed sovereign within their borders;
international politics was confined to their interaction across established
boundaries. For the founders, the new concepts of national interest and balance
of power amounted to a limitation, not an expansion, of the role of force; it
substituted the preservation of equilibrium for the forced conversion of
populations.
The Westphalian system was spread by European diplomacy
around the world. Though strained by the two world wars and the advent of
international communism, the sovereign nation-state survived, tenuously, as the
basic unit of international order.
Thus the endrun around sovereignty by the
collapsing of a nation-state’s economy.
The Westphalian system never applied fully to the Middle East. Only three of the region’s Muslim states had a historical basis: Turkey, Egypt and Iran. The borders of the others reflected a division of the spoils of the defunct Ottoman Empire among the victors of World War I, with minimal regard for ethnic or sectarian divisions. These borders have since been subjected to repeated challenge, often military.
And guess who directs the military or the
mercenaries that often start a conflict Henry and not just in those areas?
The diplomacy generated by the Arab Spring
replaces Westphalian principles of equilibrium with a generalized doctrine of
humanitarian intervention. In this context, civil conflicts are viewed
internationally through prisms of democratic or sectarian concerns. Outside
powers demand that the incumbent government negotiate with its opponents for
the purpose of transferring power. But because, for both sides, the issue is
generally survival, these appeals usually fall on deaf ears. Where the parties
are of comparable strength, some degree of outside intervention, including
military force, is then invoked to break the deadlock.
What kind of diplomacy can you expect from outside
when it’s initially not asked for but given at the end of gun paid for by the
West and granted to the local rabble? I don’t believe Egypt, Libya, or Syria
sought or seek outside interference, so outside powers are by definition also
instigators even though they may carry out their deeds in abstentia with somewhat
disguised operatives before they bring in the big guns. Can you spell N-A-T-O?
Isn’t it convenient to establish a climate
where people are reduced to mere survivalists so one can say they needed
outside intervention to break an induced deadlock?
This form of humanitarian intervention distinguishes itself
from traditional foreign policy by eschewing appeals to national interest or
balance of power — rejected as lacking a moral dimension. It justifies itself
not by overcoming a strategic threat but by removing conditions deemed a
violation of universal principles of governance.
This one takes the cake Henry. We have
the humanitarian gesture of unasked for interference in the form of funded
terrorists—al-Queada, CIA, Blackwater, take your pick—and we have the
appeal to the Western media that there has been a loss of moral compass on the part of the government as
the people who seek better conditions for themselves through peaceful protests
get met with truncheon wielding police or military and all too often while provocateurs may be there to set things off. Or we see the snipers
shooting innocent people, and then the drones, the bombings, and the radiation
fallout afterwards. All this in the name of trying to bring “universal
principles of governance” to an area an outside influence merely staged an opportunity (or helped it along) to take over. Do I need to say what goes on in America daily regarding peaceful protests?
If adopted as a principle of foreign policy, this form of
intervention raises broader questions for U.S. strategy. Does America consider
itself obliged to support every popular uprising against any non-democratic
government, including those heretofore considered important in sustaining the
international system? Is, for example, Saudi Arabia an ally only until public
demonstrations develop on its territory? Are we prepared to concede to other
states the right to intervene elsewhere on behalf of coreligionists or ethnic
kin?
“Does America consider itself obliged to
support every popular uprising against any non-democratic government, including
those heretofore considered important in sustaining the international system?” The question answers itself when the proper
wording is put in. America doesn’t support –it tears down—popular uprisings.
Saudi Arabia will not be invaded by America because of industrial interests,
and I believe it puts down its own uprisings without any (according to outside interests) need for regime
change. Ergo, democracy has no relevance in this question.
At the same time, traditional strategic imperatives have not
disappeared. Regime change, almost by definition, generates an imperative for
nation-building. Failing that, the international order itself begins to
disintegrate. Blank spaces denoting lawlessness may come to dominate the map,
as has already occurred in Yemen, Somalia, northern Mali, Libya and
northwestern Pakistan, and may yet happen in Syria.
The collapse of the state may turn its territory into a base for terrorism or
arms supply against neighbors who, in the absence of any central authority,
will have no means to counteract them.
An imperative for nation-building? What nation
does one have when the government is at the beck and call of the NWO illuminatists?
Disintegration results, yes, you answered your own question Henry and who put
that lawlessness in those countries infiltrated by mercenaries, opportunists,
and NATO? Talk about turning a state into a base for terrorism…well your friend
Bush would know a lot about that given his drug dealings in this and other
countries and networking through the CIA and other government dupes while a
sitting president. And unfortunately, since he’s been cloned a couple of times,
we’re still having to put up with this illuminatist thug. Will they clone you
too Henry?
In Syria, calls for humanitarian and strategic intervention
merge. At the heart of the Muslim world, Syria has, under Bashar al-Assad,
assisted Iran’s strategy in the Levant and Mediterranean. It supported Hamas,
which rejects the Israeli state, and Hezbollah, which undermines Lebanon’s
cohesion. The United States has strategic as well as humanitarian reasons to
favor the fall of Assad and to encourage international diplomacy to that end.
On the other hand, not every strategic interest rises to a cause for war; were
it otherwise, no room would be left for diplomacy.
Calls for humanitarian and strategic
intervention? By whom? Assad doesn’t seek NATO intervention. The people who are
the target of snipers put there by the West don’t seek it either. Syria is a
threat to your NWO precisely because it rejects Israel which produces the most
vial cutthroats on this planet. Ones capable of carrying out a Fukushima maybe
Henry? As to whether the US has strategic and humanitarian reasons for favoring
the fall of Assad. First, humanitarianism can’t be dealt out at the end of a gunpoint
while you’re proclaiming to bring democracy to the same region. Second, your
strategy’s a little lacking when, as a lapdog for Israel, you allow an entire
nation (your own in fact) to collapse under the lie of diplomacy and
humanitarianism, when both are brought at the expense of depopulation, societal
degradation, genetic fallout, and economic disaster.
As military force is considered, several underlying issues
must be addressed: While the United States accelerates withdrawals from
military interventions in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, how can a new
military commitment in the same region be justified, particularly one likely to
face similar challenges? Does the new approach — less explicitly strategic and
military, and geared more toward diplomatic and moral issues — solve the
dilemmas that plagued earlier efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan, which ended in
withdrawal and a divided America? Or does it compound the difficulty by staking
U.S. prestige and morale on domestic outcomes that America has even fewer means
and less leverage to shape? Who replaces the ousted leadership, and what do we
know about it? Will the outcome improve the human condition and the security
situation? Or do we risk repeating the experience with the Taliban, armed by
America to fight the Soviet invader but then turned into a security challenge
to us?
Let’s not forget that the military isn’t
leaving Afghanistan altogether. After all, its poppy interests would also have
to be deserted.
The new approach? Less strategic? You mean the
use of joysticks and drones?
Geared toward moral issues? Sniping innocent
civilians comes under moral issues but not in the interest of initiating a
diplomatic dialogue.
The question of whether America is biting off
more than it can chew seems like one thrown out there for the NWO crowd to mull
over since the moneychangers at the fed are wearing out their welcome on the
treadmills of the green press and America’s resources seem to be waning.
Will the outcome of who is replaced in an
ousted leadership coup improve the human condition? A strategic sociopath would
know the answer, and it and the issue of security are answered in your last
question with the admission of who armed the Taliban.
The difference between strategic and humanitarian
intervention becomes relevant. The world community defines humanitarian
intervention by consensus, so difficult to achieve that it generally limits the
effort. On the other hand, intervention that is unilateral or based on a
coalition of the willing evokes the resistance of countries fearing the
application of the policy to their territories (such as China and Russia).
Hence it is more difficult to achieve domestic support for it. The doctrine of
humanitarian intervention is in danger of being suspended between its maxims
and the ability to implement them; unilateral intervention, by contrast, comes
at the price of international and domestic support.
Both come at the price of humanity when the
two are defined by sociopaths whose only mission continues to define itself with
service to self actions.
Military intervention, humanitarian or strategic, has two
prerequisites: First, a consensus on governance after the overthrow of the
status quo is critical. If the objective is confined to deposing a specific
ruler, a new civil war could follow in the resulting vacuum, as armed groups
contest the succession, and outside countries choose different sides. Second,
the political objective must be explicit and achievable in a domestically
sustainable time period. I doubt that the Syrian issue meets these tests. We
cannot afford to be driven from expedient to expedient into undefined military
involvement in a conflict taking on an increasingly sectarian character. In
reacting to one human tragedy, we must be careful not to facilitate another. In
the absence of a clearly articulated strategic concept, a world order that
erodes borders and merges international and civil wars can never catch its
breath. A sense of nuance is needed to give perspective to the proclamation of
absolutes. This is a nonpartisan issue, and it should be treated in that manner
in the national debate we are entering.
Tell me Henry did Libya get a consensus on
governance after their leader was murdered by a marauding band of merry thugs?
Were there enough left after all the bombings to make one?
“…the political objective must be explicit and
achievable in a domestically sustainable time period.” I don’t think you needed
to reiterate that you and your band of NWO farts defined the objective well
before the deed. I also don’t think you need to define it much less enact it
with Syria and neither do they. Even you seem to acknowledge it would be
another disaster.
“In reacting to one human tragedy, we must be
careful not to facilitate another.”
First of all, the obvious. What would you know about human tragedy? Your
entire life has defined it, but in the continuance of it you’ve also defined
your incapacity to truly understand it.
“A sense of nuance is needed to give
perspective to the proclamation of absolutes.”
Was this an admission
that the NWO isn’t sure what the hell it’s doing or merely an acknowledgement that
it’s sending everyone there?
“In the absence of a
clearly articulated strategic concept, a world order that erodes borders and
merges international and civil wars can never catch its breath.”
Exactly what do you
think you have moved toward by your directives on this planet? Like I’ve said
before, the devil’s got y’all by the balls and you know which direction the
tether pulls right?
