Matt Johnson

*Originally published on The News Hub, September 1, 2015

Here’s why foreign policy will be more important in the 2016 U.S. presidential election than it was in 2008 or 2012:

The war against the Islamic State – the theocratic army of ethnic cleansers, rapists, and culture-eradicators that has overrun much of western Iraq and eastern Syria – could last for more than a decade. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s campaign against his countrymen has claimed almost a quarter of a million lives, forced more than 4 million refugees to leave the country, and displaced another 6.5 million within Syria. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has finalized an unprecedented nuclear deal with Iran, fueling Arab and Israeli concerns about a nascent relationship between Tehran and Washington. And the United States now faces an irredentist Russia, a more aggressive China, and an increasingly diffuse threat of international terrorism.

The world is bloodier and more chaotic than it was in 2008 or 2012. To some (myself included), this is immutable evidence of the perils of the Obama administration’s conviction-free, piecemeal approach to foreign policy. To others, it’s a perfectly acceptable consequence of a prudent shift toward non-interventionism after the Bush years – better to let folks fight it out than to throw our soldiers and dollars into the mix. The tension between these two lines of thought will be reflected in presidential debates, opinion polls, and media coverage in the coming months, and this is a conversation well worth having.

But arguments about the United States’ role in the world – particularly when it comes to the deployment of military force – are never conducted on even terms. Those who favor increased American action abroad are held to different standards than those who urge restraint and disengagement, and recent history is replete with examples of this fact.

Let me tell you what I mean by “different standards.” Advocates of, say, the NATO campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya are routinely held responsible for every problem that has bedeviled the country since the intervention (violent factionalism, an influx of Islamic extremists, and so on). Never mind the fact that Libya was already embroiled in a civil war which would have either a) lasted indefinitely, leaving untold numbers of civilians and combatants dead or maimed, b) resulted in a victory for Gaddafi, which would have condemned the Libyan people to many years of violent reprisal, imprisonment, and torture, or c) ended in an unaided rebel victory, which would have created the very power vacuum that opponents of the air campaign now decry – albeit after a longer, more destructive war.

While critics of the NATO campaign in Libya are right to highlight the grievous lack of provisions for post-war security and reconstruction, this isn’t an argument against intervening in the first place. And it certainly isn’t a reason to accuse proponents of military action in Libya, such as Ambassadors Susan Rice and Samantha Power, of causing every post-Gaddafi fissure and atrocity. This moral confusion is a strange tick among international relations commentators, and it offers a warped sense of responsibility and proportion.

Meanwhile, those who oppose American involvement in other shattered places – such as Syria – are never held accountable for supporting a policy that has done nothing to mitigate one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century. Every dire prediction about what would happen in Syria if outside powers tried to remove Bashar al-Assad has been realized without any such intervention. Syria has become a nightmare state, complete with roving bands of terrorists (from the al-Nusra Front to Fatah al-Islam to Hezbollah), hundreds of thousands dead, more than a million wounded, the worst refugee crisis in 25 years (which puts massive pressure on neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan), and the presence of an army of Islamists whose sole purpose is to destabilize the region, terrorize its inhabitants, and conquer as much territory as possible. The Islamic State’s de facto capital is Raqqa, and it uses much of eastern Syria as a launchpad for operations in Iraq – another country that has collapsed in the absence of once-robust American assistance.

Here’s a thought experiment: what if the United States had intervened in Syria before the civil war exploded into a region-wide disaster? What if the Obama administration had taken Anne-Marie Slaughter’s advice and established a no-fly zone along one of Syria’s borders in early 2012? What if the United States had vetted and armed rebels around the same time, all while trying to garner military support from allies in the region and in Europe?

Now imagine that none of this worked, resulting in a Syrian civil war that is precisely as horrific as it is today – the same outcome, in other words, only with American involvement. It would be a worse situation in only one sense: American soldiers would be risking their lives for nothing.

Granted, that would be awful.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s say it could be done without losing a single American life. No matter. Journalists, think-tankers, academics, and other governments would still be lining up to lambaste the United States for its hubris and malevolence. If the reaction to the Libya campaign is any indication (which it is), every subsequent Syrian death would suddenly be attributable to the intervention. It would be a “repeat” of what happened in Iraq – a “quagmire” with “no end in sight.” It would be yet another reason to mind our own business and let massacres run their course unabated – just look at what happens when we get involved!

But the United States sat this one out, so the only blameworthy parties are Bashar al-Assad’s sadistic regime, a clutch of savage jihadists, Iran, Russia, and a few brave, embattled Syrians who are fighting for their freedom in the most hideous conflict on the planet. Perhaps this is why we just can’t muster any outrage about the unending slaughter of our fellow human beings in Syria – there’s no hawkish American politician, neoconservative luminary, or liberal interventionist to direct it at.