Smoke and mirrors

Smoke and mirrors

Article:

1. Mohammed Ayoob , professor, Michigan State University,  discussed the reasons of humanitarian  intervention by major power.

Important Analysis:

2. With the end of cold war, its restraining influences spawned many ethnic and state breaking conflicts.

3. The feelings of hubris generated in the U.S. by the demise of the Soviet Union amplified its interventions proclivities.

4. These factors led to “humanitarian interventions”, especially in Balkans and West Asia.

5. Bosnia and Kosovo achieve humanitarian ends by preventing ethnic cleansing on a national scale.

6. While in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, situation is worse.

7. Such interventions helped create new international norms, whereby international community’s had the right to intervene in countries where government suppressed its people.

8. The term “Responsibility to Protect (R2P), became the linchpin of the humanitarian intervention argument.

Note: The term R2P, derived from a 2001 report by a high- powered commission at the behest of the UN Secretary General.

9. R2P ,humanitarian intervention, have ended up subverting the international order rather than strengthening it, for two reasons:

a) Such interventions undertaken with the objective of regime change but without rebuilding of state institutions. This led to state failure and internal conflict.

b) Humanitarian interventions are undertaken largely at the behest of the P-3(UK, US, France), who wield veto power in the UNSC and have the wherewithal to mount such interventions.

10. Most humanitarian interventions have been undertaken when they suit the interest of the U. S, and its allies.

11. Demand for intervention in humanitarian crises, such as in Gaza, face the threat of veto in the UNSC.

12. Most humanitarian interventions are extensions of the Western powers foreign policies rather than genuine attempts at protecting the security of affected populations.