A Charter To Intervene

The survey the BBC conducted in Iraq last week is shocking to those of us who opposed the war. Mostrespondents say that life is now better than it was before the invasion. Those who thought the US was wrong toattack are outnumbered by those who thought it was right.[1]

Our instinct is either to ignore these findings or to dismiss them. When the questioner is employed by thestate broadcaster of one of the occupying powers, the respondents might be expected to answer warily. But thisis not how the poll looks to me. When asked "Do you support the presence of the coalition forces inIraq?", 39.5% said yes, and 50.9% said no. Fewer than 10% said they had confidence in the occupationforces; over 40% said they had confidence in Iraq's religious leaders. These are not the answers you wouldexpect from people too frightened to speak freely.

Until we see persuasive evidence to the contrary, in other words, we should take this survey seriously. Weknow that the Bush and Blair governments lied about their motives for war. We know that humanitarianism wasused as a cover for imperialism. We know that thousands of civilians were killed. But we do neither ourselvesnor the Iraqis any favours by using them to ventriloquise our disgust. We can say without contradiction thatthe war should not have happened, and that it has been of benefit to the Iraqi people by ridding them of oneof the world's most abhorrent dictators.

Outside Iraq, the effects of the invasion have been overwhelmingly negative. The fury it generated amongMuslims has created a hospitable environment for Islamic terrorism. International law, which, for all itsflaws, provides a diplomatic alternative to war, has been gravely wounded. A group of unquestionably dangerousand questionably sane old men in Washington strengthened - until their campaign fell apart - their grip onglobal politics.

But to document the lies which led to war and the dangers which arose from it is to answer only half thequestion. The other half - what should have been done instead? - still hangs above our heads. If we are not tobe torn to bits by the hawks - as Harold Pinter was by Kenneth Adelman on Newsnight last week - [2] then we haveto provide an answer.

Let us picture a small, comparatively weak nation, governed by someone who commits any number of atrociouscrimes to stay in power. Let us assume that the citizens are incapable of overthrowing her by themselves. Letus assume too that all non-violent means have been exhausted, that the dictator shows every sign of living foranother 30 years, and has lined up her children to succeed her. What, if anything, should the people of morepowerful nations call on their governments to do?

Some members of the anti-war movement would say "nothing more", and they would put forward thefollowing arguments to support that position. The first is that any force with the power to intervene willhave interests which extend beyond the liberation of the oppressed. It will use the intervention to furtherthose interests. This was demonstrably the case in Haiti last month, where the US used the restoration oforder as a pretext for deposing a disobedient leader. As Noam Chomsky says, "One choice, always, is tofollow the Hippocratic principle: 'First, do no harm.' If you can think of no way to adhere to that elementaryprinciple, then do nothing." [3] As it is impossible to send in an army and do no harm, or to exercise powerin another nation without affecting the balance of power elsewhere, this surely means that it is always betterto do nothing.

In which case, it is better for the powerful nations to stand back and watch as the Ugandan army and ahandful of paltry militias murder millions in the Congo. The rich world's decision not to interveneeffectively in Rwanda was the right one; Nato should not be sending reinforcements to Kosovo this week. Ishypocrisy always worse than cynicism? Chomsky would appear to say yes. But I would rather a flawed powerintervened in a flawed manner in the Congo than that no one intervened at all.

The second argument against intervention is that it will only ever be exercised against the weak. As DavidRieff points out, it is impossible to conceive of force used against Russia on behalf of the Chechens, oragainst China on behalf of the Tibetans. [4] Humanitarian action will always be a matter of victor's justice. Butthere are surely circumstances in which victors' justice is better than no justice at all. Just because othercountries cannot invade the US to free the Chagos islanders does not in itself constitute a case againstinvading Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein.

The third argument is surely the strongest. This is that as soon as we accept that an attack by a powerfulnation against a weak one is legitimate, we open the door to any number of acts of conquest masquerading ashumanitarian action. As Chomsky points out, Japan claimed that it was invading Manchuria to rescue it from"Chinese bandits"; Mussolini attacked Abyssinia to "liberate slaves"; Hitler claimed hewas protecting the peoples he invaded from ethnic conflict.[5] It is hard to think of any colonial adventure forwhich the salvation of the bodies or souls of the natives was not advanced as justification.

Faced with this dreadful choice, a sort of moral numbness comes over us. To accept that force can sometimesbe a just means of relieving the suffering of an oppressed people is to hand a readymade excuse to everypowerful nation which fancies an empire. To deny it is to tell some of the world's most persecuted peoplesthat they must be left to rot.

It seems to me that there is no instant or reliable answer to this dilemma. But one thing is clear: thatthe current framework of international law is incapable of resolving it for us. Even if other nations wishedto act selflessly on behalf of the oppressed by attacking a despotic state, the charter of the United Nationsforbids it. What this means is that any government can then claim it has a moral duty to ignore the law. Inattempting to prevent unjustified acts of aggression, in other words, the charter's lack of discrimination mayhave encouraged them.

Surely then we need a new UN charter, not just to save the oppressed from the likes of Saddam Hussein, butalso to save both humanitarianism and world peace from the likes of George Bush. We need a charter whichpermits armed intervention for humanitarian purposes, but only when a series of rigorous tests have been met,and only when an overwhelming majority of all the world's states have approved it. We need a charter whichforbids nations with an obvious interest in the outcome from participating.

Only then will international law be able to distinguish an act of aggression from an act of compassion.Only then can humanitarianism be divorced from imperialism.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. BBC 
2. Newsnight Special, 17th March 2004. Iraq: One Year On.
3. Noam Chomsky, 9th April 1999. Judge the US by deeds, not words. New Statesman.
4. e.g. David Rieff, 20th November 2002. Interviewed by Robert Birnbaum for Identitythery.com
5. Noam Chomsky, ibid.