Russell: U.S. involvement in Syria: A humanitarian issue

The conflict in Syria is more complex, esoteric and multifaceted than a college student on a deadline can hope to understand. However, even with a humble research base of newspaper articles and BBC documentaries, what stands out most is the serious lack of focus on humanitarian efforts among the mindless violence. And yet these are the grounds on which President Obama is justifying an attack on Syria. 

In the White House Rose Garden on Aug. 31, Obama described the August chemical weapon attacks on the Syrian rebels as an “assault on human dignity” and emphasized tragic civilian deaths as the primary, and urgent, reason for intervention. 

Something just doesn’t sit quite right here.

If the argument is that Syria’s use of chemical weapons crosses an ethical threshold, one has to reconcile this belief with the fact that the U.S. government backed a series of nerve-gas attacks orchestrated by then-ally Saddam Hussein a mere generation ago. What’s more, Hussein’s attacks measured on a scale more destructive than anything Syria has seen, according to recently declassified CIA files.

Foreign Policy magazine cites that the CIA files featured the location of Iranian troops and logistics facilities, which Iraqis used to carry out an attack with mustard gas and sarin. The result was that the war between the two countries started to shift in Iraq’s favor, which ensured the Iraqi victory that the Reagan administration had promised. This attack was merely the culmination of a series of chemical attacks that had stretched back for several years, which were also well known and never disclosed by the Reagan administration. 

But despite this glaring inconsistency in policy, humanitarianism is the U.S.’ story, and they’re sticking to it. The British government has also been trying — and failing — to sell the story of humanitarianism to Parliament with hopes of gaining their support for airstrikes against Syria.

A government-issued statement released on Aug. 29 cited the primary legal justification for military action as an international responsibility for “humanitarian intervention.” Interestingly enough, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry conspicuously left out the phrase “humanitarian intervention” in his remarks to the State Department on Aug. 30. Instead, Kerry’s argument focused on teaching the world a lesson about the use of chemical weapons which, as stated above, is an argument that falls flat when presented alone.

So how does one determine whether or not intervention is in fact humanitarian? Beyond ambiguous philosophical debates, there’s actually a very concrete way to make this judgment call. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine — a global moral compact universally endorsed at the 2005 World Summit and the 2006 U.N. Security Council — states that humanitarian intervention is justifiable only in extreme cases and is determined by six major principles. These principles are as follows: just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means, reasonable prospects and right authority. 

With thousands of civilian deaths and millions displaced, the principle of a just cause for some form of intervention is inarguable. This brings us to the question of right intention, which stipulates that the primary goal of intervention is to protect civilians from their government. As Kerry stated in his remarks, the primary goal of intervention would be to discourage chemical weapon use as a global norm. Although this intervention might work positively toward the stated goal, it can’t be called a humanitarian pursuit.

Next comes last resort, which is a more arguable point that establishes a priority for diplomatic compromises above military intervention. The U.S. has contributed over $1 billion in aid to the Syrian opposition, so it could be argued that resources for a more peaceful solution are exhausted.

Then there’s proportional means, which basically means that the punishment shouldn’t outweigh the crime. It’s not always easy to quantify the scale of destruction and devise a formula for balanced retaliation. In this case, British nongovernmental organization Article 36 has cited the use of explosives in densely populated cities are likely to cause widespread civilian casualties. 

What about reasonable prospects? How likely is it that U.S. intervention will bring about a humanitarian solution? An article published in the Journal of Peace Research concluded that, historically speaking, intervening on behalf of rebels actually increases the number of civilian deaths. 

Finally, we come to the point of right authority, which states that the U.S. should attain support and affirmation from an authority entity before following through with the attack. Obama’s request for the consent of Congress is one step toward this goal, but the Center on Law and Globalization points out that the obvious ultimate authority in this situation would be the UN Security Council. 

That being said, we are still left with the following questions: Is U.S. intervention in Syria inevitable? Potentially. Is it humanitarian? My sources say no.