Perhaps the biggest argument in foreign policy decision-making circles today is whether or not the United States should pursue interventionist means when dealing with problem states. It is an extremely important discussion to have, especially as the war in Iraq continues well into its third year. Should the US have intervened in Iraq to begin with, and if so what made direct involvement with Iraq through military means an obvious choice over other so-called rogue states, such as Iran and North Korea? Defining a rule set for intervening in rogue states is essential before pro-interventionist policy can be cemented within US institutional memory, and that is assuming such a policy should be adopted for the long term. Current events in Iraq combined with history – Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iran all come to mind — suggest that US interventionism does not necessarily culminate with beneficial results for the country’s long term foreign policy objectives.

Understanding the different types of intervention is essential before any discussion can be had. There is preventive action as well as preemptive action. Preventive war is an offensive military action meant to stave off potential future threats, even if those threat do not currently exist within a problem state. Preemption is where knowledge of a future attack exists, and any action is technically defensive. The Iraq war was a preventive action on behalf of the Bush administration, and the question remains whether or not it has aided or harmed the United States’ security. Events in Iraq are currently unfolding, so piecing together an adequate view of the United States’ security based on Iraqi events is difficult and, at best, guesswork. However, how the Iraqi war and preventive intervention has affected the United States’ geopolitical standing in the region and world is currently being felt and will continue to affect US strategic moves for decades to come. It may be more helpful currently to examine how interventionism, or preventive action, has weakened the US by taking its attention away from other problem areas the world over.

The Bush administration targeted Iraq supposedly because it was developing weapons of mass destruction that were to be used against US targets. While that meme has been proven false and the intelligence faulty, the administration continues to suggest that the preventive action to topple Saddam Hussein has made the US safer. The argument seems laughable, however, when one examines the current danger posed by Iran and, especially North Korea. While the United States’ is bogged down in Iraq with scant little forces remaining to engage other potential threats throughout the world, North Korea retains nuclear weapons and Iran is potentially developing their own. If prevention is adopted as the new foreign policy framework, it would be best suited to deal with the most obvious threats to US security. Selecting potential targets for intervention is the most difficult aspect of the doctrine, and requires accurate intelligence collection and analysis, which cannot always be relied upon. Also, no matter what action is taken in another country the remaining threats to the US – be they states or malevolent non-state actors – will capitalize on the world’s most powerful military being occupied to further develop plans or undertake violent operations. By selecting Iraq, arguably the incorrect target for intervention, the United States’ interests may have been harmed, strengthening rival Iran’s influence in the region and world.

Iran is reaping huge rewards from the US military involvement in Iraq, realizing that it can push the international community on its nuclear program since no true threat of reactive force exists outside of Israel. With Israel being held on a short leash by the United States for fear of a potential crisis in Iraq propagated by Iran-backed Shi’ite militias, Iran is left with free reign to negotiate its own terms on nuclear development. Also, Iran’s control over massive oil reserves has granted it even more leverage, which could be increased further if it attempts to coordinate its petro-policy with Shi’ite-dominated Iraq and a Russia disinterested in pursuing wide-ranging international sanctions. Energy-hungry China also does not wish to pursue sanctions on Iran, since it directly benefits from Iranian oil. Having little recourse, the United States has had to weaken its line of negotiation since involvement in Iraq has made wide-reaching military operations impossible and sabre-rattling completely ineffective. With Iraq serving as a case study, it would appear the preventive intervention can cause more trouble than good since since the potential policy blowback was not taken into consideration.

Policy blowback, however, should have been forseen had Bush administration policymakers simply took the lessons of history to heart. Intervention has rarely worked in the experience of the United States, as in Korea and Vietnam. The Korean War signaled the true start of the Cold War, with Soviet-supported North Korea’s invasion of US-backed South Korea. President Truman decided to pursue full intervention in June of 1950. Despite the United States’ best efforts, the war reached a stalemate in 1953 where it technically remains until this day. Due to the failure of intervention, North Korea remains a threat to the United States and East Asia. Failure in Vietnam, however, is the most beneficial historical case study that the Bush administration should have taken lessons from. Similar to Korea, Communist forces from North Vietnam invaded US-backed South Vietnam and led to U.S. intervention. Despite massive military involvement and expenditure, the US was forced to withdraw in 1973 and left the Vietnamese to determine their own future.
Intervention, though, does not necessarily have to be on a full scale military level. Clandestine support for groups supporting US interests at one point in time may result in disastrous blowback, as in Afghanistan with the mujahideen fighters and in Iran with the coup of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. By supporting the Islamist fighters in Afghanistan against Soviet military advancement in the 1980s, the United States trained and armed the future al Qaeda. By toppling the elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953, the US set events in motion that would eventually lead to the rise of the Islamist movement and Ayatollah Khomeini.

None of what has been mentioned is to suggest that intervention as a tool of foreign policy should be completely discarded. Obviously, intervention is sometimes required – prevention, however, may not be. Vietnam, Korea, the Afghan-Soviet War, and the rise of Mossadegh were all events that did not directly harm the United States, and all were deserving of greater scrutiny at the time. Indeed it is easy to point out the mistakes of the past, but it should also be simple to see those mistakes for what they are now and apply them to current situations. The Bush administration failed in doing that with Iraq, and has harmed the case for preventive war and intervention almost irrevocably. It is unfortunate since when intervention is required one day the American public may not be so willing to trust their government – the Vietnam Syndrome replayed as the Iraq Syndrome, preemption mistaken for misguided prevention.

Mitch Prothero in Salon (via Juan Cole):

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths — the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far — on “terrorists” who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters — as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers — avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators — as so many Palestinian militants have been.

For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they’ll get some fighters, too.

The fact that the sentence I bolded is being utilized as a line of argument and justification for the targeting of civilians is rather ludicrous. For instance, if the US started constantly shelling Sunni civilians with reckless abandon in Iraq there would be immense backlash — it would be simply unthinkable and counterproductive for US policy. For that reason, the US attempts to be extremely careful in how it targets Sunni areas, Fallujah and some other areas in Anbar province notwithstanding, and it is because the public backlash from overkill would harm American attempts at achieving peace. Yet Israel has utilized this line of thought in its Lebanese strategy, when in fact all it does is ween the moderates away from sanity and toward the radical end of the ideological spectrum. Don’t mistake me, an offensive against Hizbollah’s military positions and arsenal is more than deserved, but attempting to remove Hizbollah from Lebanese society itself via missiles alone is like a brain surgeon attempting to remove a tumor with a baseball bat.

Manuela Paraipan’s latest article on Global Politician suggests that Israel’s attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon is really in the Lebanese government’s best interests:

By shelling Hizballah, Israel is not only doing itself a service, but also to Lebanon. For years, Lebanon has been a hostage of Hizballah and its providers. The Lebanese Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora lastly recognized it publicly, in an interview with the Italian, Corriere della Sera. Siniora said, “the entire world must help us disarm Hizballah, which obeys the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus.”

I will agree that Fuad Siniora would undoubtedly love to have control over his country, with an amenable parliament and a disarmed Hizbollah. His inability to deal with Hizbollah up until this point is rooted in Hizbollah’s popularity and the strength of its bloc and allies within the Lebanese parliament, which has come about as a result of the terrorist organization’s wide-ranging public support and the United States’ push for a truly democratic and representative Lebanon following the Syrian leavestaking. While Hizbollah’s inexcusable cross-border raid, murders, and kidnappings could have been utilized to undercut the group’s hold on southern Lebanon, the Israeli escalation has put Siniora in an impossible position. The continued shelling of Lebanese cities and the deaths of civilians, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Druze, and Christians, has counteracted any wide-ranging ill will Hizbollah afforded itself by overstepping its bounds. Now Hizbollah, which continues on despite heavy pressure from the legendary Israeli military behemoth, finds itself in a much stronger position politically than before. The lopsided use of force against Lebanese civilians who are not directly connected to Hizbollah, and in many cases may have opposed Hizbollah’s existence, is creating a frightening consensus throughout Lebanon despite former political leanings — a shared hatred of Israel.

The bombardment of Lebanon will eventually end, but Hizbollah will not disappear through sheer kinetic force. At best, it will become more of an amorphous organization with a reduced ability to utilize Iranian-made rockets to attack Israeli civilians. While that is an achievable and desirable goal, it does not mean that Hizbollah would be incapable of striking Israel directly through other, unconventional means. It is, after all, a terrorist organization. Instead of solving the problem of Hizbollah, Israel may just be forcing it into another configuration with even greater and more vehement backing from every day Lebanese than ever before. So, no, Manuela, I disagree that Israel is doing Lebanon or itself, really, a tremendous favor currently.