14
Jan

Susan Rice and Humanitarian Intervention

   Posted by: Pat   in Middle East, United States

Though before she became a senior Obama advisor during the presidential campaign and now nominee for US ambassador to the nuke-deprived United Nations, I knew only little about Susan Rice.  What I did know was that she was a major advocate for humanitarian intervention, especially in Africa.  As she is about to go through her nomination process in the Senate, I think it is important to know how she stands on this issue as it is also central to UN’s mission.  

To tell you the truth I’m a little bit worried about her.  I am a strong believer in the power for the United States to be a pillar for morality and freedom throughout the globe and bringing peace and stability by force is indeed necessary at times, but we must have a measured policy in this regard as so many incidents have shown the negative consequences possible, ie. Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon… Though I know Rice is knowledgeable (Phd in IR :) ) and experienced for her young age (served in the State Department under Clinton), she also comes across as a strong (bullheaded?) advocate for intervention in humanitarian cases that unfortunately may just get the US in more hot water, ie. Sudan.

I especially became concerned with aggressive stances regarding military and political intervention by watching her speak about Darfur in front of the Brookings Institution back in 2007:  

 

 

She first lambasts the Bush administrations for being all talk and no walk during the ongoing crisis and starts to through around lines and phrases such as: ’own our (US, international community) terms’ ‘ultimatum’ ‘military force’ ‘air strikes’, all pointed at Sudan’s government.  Now the last thing I want to do is defend the Sudenese government, which has been implementing a genocidal policy towards its black citizens in its southeast for years now, so I won’t, they’re bad dudes period.  But there are real strategic and practical reasons why the US hasn’t sent troops into the country and probably shouldn’t.

At the beginning of her talk Rice curtly states that US public opinion supports ending the atrocity in Darfur and that US policy is ’out of step with American public opinion’, but this opinion would change quickly if all of a sudden we had American men and women at the nation’s doorstep, guns in hand.  The situation in Sudan is extremely dangerous and as much as the country is a failed state, it contains a government willing to use force to protect its sovereignty.  The US military is already tied down rather heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is sad, but true that we have troops in these places because they hold greater strategic interest to our national security than does Sudan.  I just don’t think the US public or government has the stomach to send attacking planes, let alone troops, into another Muslim majority country.  I can just see the denouncements of ‘Imperial America’ and ‘war of civilizations continues’.  

The Bush administration in many ways has been diplomatically tough on Sudan’s government, leading Security Council resolutions and Bush was the first to call its government’s actions ‘genocide.’  Secretary State Condoleezza Rice (Susan Rice’s twin sister, nah, just joking) has also had blunt words to say about the Darfur crisis and about other humanitarian disasters throughout Africa.  Unfortunately, Susan Rice is right though, these words/actions have not solved the problem or the suffering.

I don’t want to overstate Rice’s humanitarian ‘crusading’ as I’m rather confident Obama can rein her in as he seems like he will be pragmatic when it comes to such strategic situations (though there will be great pressure on him abroad, especially in Africa), but the Senate confirming committee and the media need to do their job and have Rice explain how far she will go in certain humanitarian crisis, that may or may not have strategic implications for US national security.  I have to admit that if a ‘neocon’ or Bush official made similar statements as Rice did in that video, there would be some loud criticism.

What do you think of Rice’s humanitarian interventionist zeal?  Are you concerned or do you think she will just be a strong, yet pragmatic advocate for such dire situations around the globe during her tenure at the UN?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Middle East, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

5 comments so far

econstudent01
 1 

Call me naive, but I’ve never been dissauded from America taking the lead in humanistarin intervention. Perhaps it is because I came to awareness post-somolia in the 90’s, but I always thought the U.S. could be great at leading a coalition in kicking the crap out of genociders. The campaigns in Bosnia and then Kosovo demonstrated what a multilateral force led by the U.S. could accompiush with limited toll on the US.

Why not set up a no fly zone and bomb and Sudanese army/ militia incursions into Darfur. We provide overwhelming air cover for African troops who maintain the ground (just like the KLA in Kosovo or Northern Alliance in Afghanistan). With China increasingly spreading its influence on the continent, I think a continued effort, started by Bush, to help that region is a real “realist” mission to undertake.

January 15th, 2009 at 6:02 am
micraig
 2 

I may not be reading econ’s approach correctly. Are you advocating U.S. doing some bombing in this area?

After listening to the clip by Rice, I am curious. Is the situation in Darfur the equivalent of the situation earlier in Kosovo, as Rice maintains? If so, then the question becomes, why a response in one place (Eurasion) and not another (African)? Is someone implying an innate racism to our reasons for inaction?

January 15th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
econstudent01
 3 

Well, yes maybe. Say we support the organizing of a bunch of African nations who would like to participate in a peacekeeping mission with U.S. and British air support. The UN authorizes it and tells Sudan to keep its military and paramilitary forces out. Heck yeah we should bomb anyone who participates.

I know this sounds like a bleeding heart argument, but I think peacekeeping and democratization are vital to the long term strategic interests to the U.S. vs. China. China is surging, and will probably continue to do so over the next 50-100 years. I see them exerting their strength militarily just as they are economically right now. The U.S. cannot allow Africa to go into China’s orbit without a fight. That[’s really over simplistic, but Bush is right on in his funding of AIDS treatment and humanitarian aid for that continent.

January 15th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Pat Frost
 4 

The US and most of the world has more invested in the stability of Europe than in Africa, that is just the way it is and no doubt this plays a major part in how we have handled the Darfur situation. I agree that the US could provide quite the global good in combatting this genocidal tyrants, but it is just not that simple. Econ, you’re plan of air attacks with African troops moving in sounds good, but in reality things would not likely go smoothly. It would only be a matter of time before civilians would be hurt in a bombing or the African troops would lose ‘too many’ soldiers in a fierce fight. I hope a process like this would work, but and apparently many others have their doubts.

January 15th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Pat Frost
 5 

Just read your 2nd comment Econ. I agree that the US should have a strong presence in Africa to combat a growing Chinese one (love the Great Power talk!), but it needs to be careful in how this is done. The US has a ’soft’ footprint in aid and diplomatic ties with most African states and is starting to put a ‘hard’ one down as well with Africom and counterterrorism and military training’s. However it is questionable that becoming imbroiled in the Darfur situation would help our geopolitical standing in the region.

Strategically, China has benefited with its relations with Sudan (oil), but it has suffered international prestige. However, the Chinese government does not have a free media or populace clamoring for it to respect human rights like the West’s democracies. Where was I going with this last part….

January 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

One Trackback/Ping

  1. Israpundit » Blog Archive » A Green Light to Invade Israel? C’mon!    Aug 01 2009 / 8am:

    [...] protecting what passes for Palestinians. Both she and US Amb. Susan Rice at the UN have pushed this concept for relief of Jihadi genocide against nominal African Muslims in the Darfur region of the Sudan by the Islamist central [...]

Back to top