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US President Barack Obama has decided to seek congressional approval for “limited, narrow” punitive military action against Syria for the use of banned chemical weapons against its own people, killing nearly 1,500 and wounding many more. If this action does take place, it will be in the general context of the concept of a “humanitarian intervention” against a regime responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 of its citizens in recent years and for there being nearly 2 million of them currently seeking shelter in neighboring countries. This concept that has evolved in response to the spread of internal conflicts in the wake of the Cold War that have led to gross violations of human rights is, however, highly controversial. The debate relates mainly to the following questions: If states commit genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or pursue ethnic cleansing, who is to intervene and how, and whether this intercession will help stop the crimes or simply create more problems than it solves.
Those who adopt the case for humanitarian intervention argue that if a sovereign state commits atrocities, the international community cannot and should not, on moral grounds, stand idly by. While international law forbids any use of force against a sovereign state without UN Security Council approval, NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 to stop the slaughter of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo without Security Council authorization. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, convened by the Canadian government in 2001, put forward the concept of the “responsibility to protect.” This concept assigns the international community with that duty if a state is unable or unwilling to protect its population from such gross human rights violations. The UN decided at the 2005 World Summit that it has that responsibility. While, according to most international lawyers, humanitarian intervention is conditional on Security Council authorization, some others argue to the contrary, saying that there has never been any need for such authorization for military action to stop crimes against humanity.
On the other hand, those who are against humanitarian intervention put forward mainly the following arguments: Interventions are driven by geopolitics and national interests rather than moral considerations. They are often a guise for neo-colonialist or American imperialist interests. They may set a dangerous precedent for future violations of the principle of national sovereignty, which has so far proved to be the best principle for protecting human wellbeing. Such interventions may provide short-term solutions, but undermine long-term peace and stability, doing more harm than good.
What, then, is my position on humanitarian intervention? I believe each case has to be considered separately. In some cases, such intervention is justified. Both of NATO's interventions in the 1990s -- first in Bosnia and Herzegovina and later in Kosovo -- surely helped peace and stability in the Balkans, although clearly they were not driven solely by humanitarian causes. The NATO intervention in Libya, too, may not have been driven solely by moral considerations, but it did rid the country of a tyrant. The international community should not have remained indifferent to crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa. However, the interventions in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 were surely motivated by the interests of the US rather than humanitarian considerations.
What about a possible punitive strike against Syria? The dimensions of the tragedy caused by the dictatorship attempting to suppress a people's rebellion are only too evident. In view of the military, financial and other support extended to the dictatorship by Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, I have written in favor of humanitarian and military support to the opposition to achieve a balance between the sides conducive to a negotiated settlement of the conflict. I would positively view the considered intervention by the US and allies in the hope that it may open the way for a political solution by weakening the tyrant.