[Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran

[Ran Greenstein]

There are all kinds of lessons in history, so yes, the US/UK
intervention in Iraq has been a total disaster. So has been the lack
of intervention in the DRC (a much bigger disaster in fact), leaving
the scene to local and regional forces. Somalia has been a disaster
for many years, with and without western intervention, Sudan as well,
to say nothing about Rwanda, and the list goes on. There is simply no
lesson that tells us that it is always better to leave things to local
(or African) forces to sort out a mess, especially when they created
it in the first place. And, there is no lesson that tells us that the
west (imperialism if you will) is better: every case deserves a
specific analysis grounded in its historical context.

The context for Libya was an imminent massacre, and total inability of
local/regional forces to do anything about that. No leftist supported
western intervention for its own sake: it was a last resort type of
solution, which did indeed turn out badly (though we will never know
what would have happened if it hadn't taken place). Creating an
opposition between 'ordinary people' who know what imperialism is
really up to, and leftist intellectuals who fall prey to the
temptation of benevolent humanitarian intervention, is pure fantasy (a
rhetorical device that does not work even on its own terms).



On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 7:38 AM,  <grinker at mweb.co.za> wrote:
>
> I never claimed to speak on behalf of anyone. I merely followed your own
> example of producing hearsay evidence of what people are thinking about
> intervention in Libya. Of course the considered views of your worthy lefties
> no doubt carry more weight than those of my "sans-culottes". Nor did I ever
> claim that there was the basis for independent intervention in Libya.
> Neither, in my view, was there any possibility of influencing imperialist
> intervention in a progressive direction. Surely the disaster of Western
> intervention in Iraq (and all those bloody interventions that preceded it)
> are sufficient to prove that? Or is the study of history just an academic
> exercise for your seminar groups?
>
>
>
>


-- 
Ran Greenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa