October 16, 2014
The
American-led air attacks against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have triggered new
debates in the United States about how the U.S. should respond to this and
other challenges in faraway lands that may or may not directly threaten
American interests. I have had enjoyable and substantive discussions with
students and faculty at the University of Oklahoma this week, in which this
question has come up repeatedly — and understandably so, given that most
Americans had felt that their country was withdrawing from its wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, rather than re-engaging in new combat action.
My response has been that there is no correct,
obvious, simple answer. Rather, I have suggested, the thoughtful and
questioning manner in which Americans seem to be approaching their military
actions against ISIS contains within it the seeds of an answer. This is a far
cry from the reflexive, massive military attacks that the United States
launched against Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 terrorism of 2001.
Americans wonder whether their military participation will expand or continue
for years, and seem more prepared than in previous years to ask whether they
are doing the right or the most appropriate thing.
I have responded to questions on this issue by
suggesting that what is needed now is a more nuanced and fact-based analysis of
conditions on the ground, as well as the implications of renewed American
militarism. The situation with ISIS in Iraq/Syria could well resurface in
similar forms in other countries, should the ISIS brand of Islamist militancy
continue to spread. The best recommendation I can make in this situation has
been to suggest that Americans — or any other foreign powers — should ask and
honestly answer three basic questions before they send their troops to fight
and kill people in distant lands.
The three questions are about the legitimacy,
the efficacy, and the consequences of military
involvement. I mention these three critical issues mainly on the basis of the
events of the last quarter century, when assorted American military ventures in
Arab-Asian lands have resulted mostly in problematic long-term consequences.
These include creating the kind of chaos in which groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS
thrive, or providing new recruiting tools for such criminal organizations to
attract new members who feel they are fighting a defensive jihad to protect
Islamic lands from foreign invaders.
I suspect that if any foreign power asked about
the legitimacy, the efficacy, and the consequences of its military involvement
in other countries before actually launching such militarism, it might be
possible to minimize the negative consequences that we have experienced in the
Middle East in recent decades.
The legitimacy of foreign military action is
probably the most complex of my three criteria, but also the most important.
Legitimacy ideally requires consent and validation by both the local
populations where the warfare will occur as well as the international
institutions that are mandated to do this, such as the UN Security Council.
This is not an easy goal to achieve, which is why it is rarely attempted. Lack
of legitimacy, however, is almost certain to guarantee that the foreign
military intervention will create more new problems than it will resolve
existing ones — as happened in the war against Iraq in 2003.
The second criterion, efficacy, is closely tied
to the legitimacy issue. If local and foreign actors agree on the need for
military action, they can then define its specific aims more rigorously and
precisely. This was not done in the NATO-led military action in Libya in 2011,
even though that episode was widely seen to be legitimated by Libyans, the Arab
League and the UN Security Council. The imprecision of the mission and its extension
to overthrow the Libyan regime helped to create the chaotic conditions that
prevail in the country today. Military action succeeds best when it has
precise, contained and limited aims, which are essential to determining its
efficacy beforehand.
The third criterion — the consequences of
militarism — is the most difficult to ascertain before the fact; but this must
be attempted in all cases if one wishes to avoid the kind of debacles we have
witnessed in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq in recent years. In some cases runaway
militarism generates unintended consequences that end up creating huge new
threats, such as ISIS in Iraq-Syria, or the spread of such ideologies in North
Africa via Libya.
It is not clear if the White House went through
such an analytical process before deciding to attack ISIS targets, but it is
heartening to see more and more Americans today — unlike in 2002-3 — asking
about whether this is the right thing for their country to do.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and director of
the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the
American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright ©
2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global