IBRAHIM CHAUDRY
Across the last two decades, the West has presided over the era of “liberal interventionism”, under which (predominantly British and American) troops have utilised force in the effort to attain a more humane and safer world. The decisions underpinning this interventionist doctrine have shaped modern society, being intrinsically linked to the recent surge in terrorism and increasing cynicism towards politics, without even mentioning the immense cost in blood for those involved. The purpose of this piece is not to assess each individual conflict in which Britain has been militarily involved, but to evaluate the general formula applied to the regions where the West has intervened, and consider whether it has been effective. It is also to consider whether the era of liberal interventionism has concluded, in the context of the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, which arguably marked the final act in a five-stage tragedy:
- Guilt: Failure in Rwanda
- Confidence: Successes in Kosovo and Sierra Leone
- Optimism: Adventuring to Afghanistan and Iraq
- Realism: Tthe rise of sectarian terrorism in the context of the Arab Spring
- Despair: "It is what it is."
Act 1: Guilt - Failure in Rwanda
The impact of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 on modern politics is often significantly understated, especially on the interventionist doctrine. Following the conclusion of the Cold War, this was the first event to truly shatter the perception that a harmonious world free from conflict had been achieved: an estimated 800,000 people were butchered within three months. While utterly tragic, the most disheartening point for Western leaders was its sheer preventability. For numerous reasons, especially following the shooting down of two American Black Hawk helicopters in Somalia during a conflict the year before, the political appetite for interventionism had faltered. Bill Clinton would subsequently admit that the loss of life of at least 300,000 people in Rwanda [1] could be attributed to the failure to deploy 10,000 American troops to the country, while stories like these emerged [2] from the Rwanda Children's Museum:
- Name: David
- Age: 10
- Ambition: to be a doctor
- Favourite sport: football
- What he enjoyed most: making people laugh
- How he died: tortured to death
- Last words said to his mother, also tortured to death: "Don't worry, the United Nations are coming"
Act 2: Confidence - Successes in Kosovo and Sierra Leone
If the failure of the Rwandan genocide placed morality within this formula, the interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone provided the confidence that Western military intervention could genuinely succeed in transforming territories and livelihoods. These missions, though less well-known than the subsequent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, involved the use of force to stop ethnic cleansing in the context of Bosnia, and halting a rebel advance in Sierra Leone. These were the "just wars", as outlined by Prime Minister Blair in his Doctrine of the International Community [3] at the time.
[Tony Blair is welcomed in Kosovo (1999)]
The story of the intervention in Sierra Leone (Operation Palliser) is remarkable, and arguably stands as the most forgotten British military engagement of this century: the Revolutionary United Front rebel group, notorious for their barbarity in the civil war by hacking off limbs and utilising child soldiers, had nearly advanced to the country's capital, Freetown. This prompted British personnel to be deployed, with the aim of evacuating EU nationals. The force commander on the ground, Brigadier David Richards, strayed from his formal mandate of limited evacuation, without the political authority of the Ministry of Defence or Downing Street, and sought to halt the RUF's advance after pledging British weaponry for government forces. In other words, Brigadier Richards had committed Britain to taking sides as part of an intervention in Sierra Leone's civil war. The decision ultimately resulted in the successful defeat of the rebel group; even now, Sierra Leone is the one country where Blair remains wildly popular. [4]
There are two notable factors to observe from these interventions: they were relatively uncontroversial with broad international support and domestic backing, and the mission was broadly straight-forward with a limited number of troops. This was intervention in its purest form, without substantial controversy or casualty. Even today, the most ardent pacifists generally concede on its success. As a consequence of this, the confidence of the interventionist doctrine perpetuated by the New Labour government soared at the start of the twenty-first century.
Act 3: Optimism - adventuring to Afghanistan and Iraq
The events of 9/11 transformed the cycle of intervention, initially with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and subsequently the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq two years later; the latter remains one of the most polarising and consequential conflicts of the last two decades. Assessing each aspect of the conflict is a complex endeavour in itself, including the morality of launching it, given the “far from satisfactory” intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) supposedly held by Iraq. However, the invasion has been immensely impactful on Western foreign policy direction too, without mentioning the turmoil it has caused, including significant loss of life.
Invading Iraq was not like Kosovo or Sierra Leone: this war attracted the largest protests in human history, and the ambitious nature of the operation was something untested in modern times. The debate still continues today as to whether this was a “just war”. Regardless of the inability to find WMDs (although Saddam Hussein never cooperated with UN inspectors on this), it was certainly clear that the regime was a brutal dictatorship that had no hesitation in using force, terror and even chemical weapons to suppress dissent.
The legal justification for the war may have been the risk of WMDs, as outlined by UN Resolution 1441, but the moral justification pitched by the politicians was propelled by stories of human suffering. Although there are countless such experiences, one which heavily resonated with the British public was an audience member on a BBC Question Time session in March 2003. [5]
Audience member: “I am Iraqi; I am Kurdish. Over the past thirty years, I have seen so much tragedy that no human being in the world has ever witnessed. Does anybody ever ask us ‘how do you feel?’ - no.”
David Dimbleby (host): “Go on, I’m asking”
Audience member: “We want this war more than anything on this planet”
The justification for selecting this particular quote is that, in the audio recording, it is possible to hear the loud cheers of support for the audience member in favour of war. It’s difficult to convey the ferocious nature of the debate ahead of the invasion, yet once again, with both sides claiming that their course of action was the “moral” solution, the principles of the interventionist doctrine advocated by Blair and Bush were being stretched. The lack of broad support for the war, and the subsequent failure to find WMDs would always be detrimental to its image, but it was the calamitous nature of the way that the conflict unfolded which had the most impact.
Although the initial stage of conflict was over relatively quickly, with Saddam Hussein fleeing Baghdad before eventually being captured, the blow-back from terrorism grew while Iraq descended into terror and anarchy. The horrific scenes that emerged following the invasion damaged the belief that interventionism could bring about positive change, with effects still felt today. The reasons for the scale of the damage are well-debated and well-documented, from the dissolution of the Iraqi Baʽathist Party to the failure to comprehend the extent of the sectarian divide. The war may have been underpinned by moral justification, but Britain (and, indeed, the Western world led by America) does not have a moral obligation to do what it cannot. This conflict seemed to demonstrate that the vision of building a “gender-sensitive multi-ethnic centralised state based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law” in Iraq [6] was never feasible.
Act 4: Realism - the rise of terrorism in the context of the Arab Spring
From the late 2010s, a wave of anti-government protests and uprisings swept across Muslim-majority states, from Tunisia to Bahrain. The majority of these were centred around anger over corruption, systems of governance, and suppression of liberty. Proponents of the invasion in 2003, including Blair, argue today that these would have inevitably spread to Iraq, the most brutal regime of them all, and, had the UK not intervened, that the consequences would be greater destruction and death than in the initial occupation.
Whether or not these hypothetical scenarios would have in fact emerged will remain a contentious discussion for decades, yet the impact of the Iraq War on the interventionist doctrine was clearly witnessed in Syria: when all indicators pointed to the Assad regime using chemical weapons, in violation of the “red lines” set by President Obama, the British Parliament rejected a military response in 2013 by thirteen votes.
Arguably, that vote in August 2013 would mark Britain's relinquishment of its role in pursuing the interventionist doctrine which it had advocated a decade before. Although it had enacted UN-mandated intervention in Libya only 2 years before, like Bill Clinton’s refusal to deploy troops in Rwanda following the loss of American life in Mogadishu, and following the soul-searching caused by the Iraq War, Britain had refused to intervene in Syria. This decision would later be attributed as the cause of mass loss of life and the European refugee crisis, yet the depths of terrorism and extremism exposed in Iraq deterred further intervention in that region. These were forces which the international community realised it lacked an adequate formula to combat.
Act 5: Despair - "It is what it is"
The withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan under President Biden potentially marks the end of almost two decades of the attempt at "liberal interventionism". In many ways, the devastating scenes from Afghanistan over the summer and autumn have demonstrated the extent to which a small number of troops was able to maintain a decent livelihood for many Afghans (probably not on the level of the state, which remained heavily inadequate, but most metrics convey improvement over the last two decades for individuals).
[RAF jets evacuate Afghan citizens and British nationals fleeing the Taliban (August 2021)]
The phrase "it is what it is" was used by the British Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, while tearing up during a media interview when talking about the West's departure from Afghanistan. While it might seem like a common and insignificant throwaway comment, it could arguably sum up the whole of the modern Western foreign policy, especially under President Biden:
There's a thousand places we can go to deal with injustice - the idea of us being able to use our armed forces to solve every internal problem in the world is not within our capacity…do I bear responsibility? Zero responsibility.
For Western leaders now, especially President Biden, the suffering in the world "is what it is". Despite how horrific it might be, the international community cannot get involved beyond speeches to the UN and strongly worded letters of condemnation. In places where the West has actively seeded itself over the last two decades, this could easily (and rightfully) be interpreted as an act of betrayal. However, it marks the end of the cycle of interventionism, condemning it as a doctrine that was just too costly and too bloody.
But the question remains if the new foreign policy of isolationism risks totalling more in cost and in blood.
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1. “US could have saved 300,000 Tutsis in Genocide – Clinton” https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/63870
2. "Wiring a web for global good – Gordon Brown” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7rrJAC84FA
3. “Doctrine of the International Community” (so-called “Chicago Speech”) by Tony Blair
http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=279
4. Humanitarian Intervention: Britain in Sierra Leone - BBC report
https://youtu.be/Dp7Q018O6s4
5. The Fault Line: Dying for a Fight podcast - episode 4
6. “Can Intervention Work?” - Rory Stewart (2011)
7. https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1413245490003652608