CrabbedOne
Walking sideways snippily
On TDS As Syrian deaths mount, ‘responsibility to protect’ takes hit: experts
Bush came to office promising not to do nation building but then stumbled through the window of opportunity 9-11 provided towards Baghdad. Iraq presented far bigger problems that the US at the height of its powers struggled to extract itself from with almost no reward and then found itself dragged back in. It clearly worsened the terrorist threat that many Americans thought it would address. In humanitarian terms there's no telling what cruelties Saddam would have inflicted but the sad fact is the civilian toll was considerable; in the same ballpark as Syria. Righting Afghanistan by itself after decades of war was a huge task that was compromised by overreach into other wars.
Libya was an example where an unwilling US polity was dragged in by irresponsible Europeans who weren't looking beyond the next electoral cycle. The unplanned post-conquest Phase III was seen as the problem in Iraq and so there simply would not be one in Libya. It would sort itself out with a little light diplomatic work that was then skimped by the British and the French. The people who faced the music over this inshallah operation were US politicians and they did look like they'd been taken for a ride.
Over Syria we had many of the same crowd essentially calling for similar half measures on a wing and prayer as Libya collapsed into chaos. What was done to intervene short of that mostly covertly has probably has made Syria much worse than it needed to be.
The US is simply not well cast in this role. It's a country that was largely unwilling to join WWII until the affront of Pearl Harbour despite the tricksy FDR's best efforts. Even the far sighted Marshall Plan was political disaster for Truman at the time. Such great generosity is there but it is a scarce resource to be used carefully. It can't be easily be mobilised for such thankless tasks.
Well R2P is foundering on lack of US capability to satisfactorily fix any sizeable civil disturbance by armed force. People seemed to forget that even tiny Kosovo was a big task that ran way over budget and beyond its timelines. It was rather unpopular with Republicans.
Bush came to office promising not to do nation building but then stumbled through the window of opportunity 9-11 provided towards Baghdad. Iraq presented far bigger problems that the US at the height of its powers struggled to extract itself from with almost no reward and then found itself dragged back in. It clearly worsened the terrorist threat that many Americans thought it would address. In humanitarian terms there's no telling what cruelties Saddam would have inflicted but the sad fact is the civilian toll was considerable; in the same ballpark as Syria. Righting Afghanistan by itself after decades of war was a huge task that was compromised by overreach into other wars.
Libya was an example where an unwilling US polity was dragged in by irresponsible Europeans who weren't looking beyond the next electoral cycle. The unplanned post-conquest Phase III was seen as the problem in Iraq and so there simply would not be one in Libya. It would sort itself out with a little light diplomatic work that was then skimped by the British and the French. The people who faced the music over this inshallah operation were US politicians and they did look like they'd been taken for a ride.
Over Syria we had many of the same crowd essentially calling for similar half measures on a wing and prayer as Libya collapsed into chaos. What was done to intervene short of that mostly covertly has probably has made Syria much worse than it needed to be.
The US is simply not well cast in this role. It's a country that was largely unwilling to join WWII until the affront of Pearl Harbour despite the tricksy FDR's best efforts. Even the far sighted Marshall Plan was political disaster for Truman at the time. Such great generosity is there but it is a scarce resource to be used carefully. It can't be easily be mobilised for such thankless tasks.
