Right Thinking From The Left Coast
"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Dictators In The Mist
by West Virginia Rebel

John McCain on Mugabe:

I believe the international community must act to impose sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies and thereby hasten the end of that regime. We should consider expelling Mugabe’s diplomats from Washington and explore options with our friends in Africa and beyond, including suspending Zimbabwe’s participation in regional organizations as long a Mugabe clings to power. The results of the March 29 election must form the basis of a post-Mugabe resolution in Zimbabwe.

It’s the right approach, and McCain seems to understand, more than John Bolten and his ilk on the right or those who called for invading Burma on the left, that you don’t have to go to war with every thug in the world. Or, as Daniel Larison points out:

We should remember that Westerners in particular tend to valorise one side in an internal struggle and act as if their acquisition of power will resolve conflicts that may be rooted in much more enduring structural divisions based on ethnicity, tribe or religion that are obscure to us and hidden behind simple labels of democrat and dictator.
....

What we are seeing in Zimbabwe is just one in a series of imploding post-colonial governments ushering in political strife and the early stages of civil war.  Does it then become the new standard that each failing, violent kleptocracy around the world becomes the ward of other states?  It is not at all clear how this actually aids any of the peoples in question over the long term, if their political conflicts must be perpetually adjudicated and resolved by the use of outside force.  Nothing could be more effective in stunting political development in these countries, and the domestic political opposition already suffers enough from the accusation of being the puppet of foreigners without foreign intervention seeming to confirm that the opposition’s cause and that of outside powers is the same.

Intervention only works if you have a clear goal in mind and have some sort of a plan on what to do once the bad guys are gone. I think the lack of either in Iraq has soured most of the public on further military action against other unpleasant regimes for a while. And I think McCain knows this, even if guys like John Bolton won’t admit it.

Posted by West Virginia Rebel on 06/25/08 at 07:21 PM in Politics, Law, & Economics  • (7) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Discuss this in the forums
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