With specific regard to Iraq, it's far from clear that this worsening of the lives of the population did not take place without contribution from the West, and particularly America.
This is true. Nevertheless, Saddam was the guy in charge and was responsible for choosing which direction to lead the country, and he lead it down the destructive path that ended with the 2nd Iraq war. He didn't do it in a vaccuum, and there were US, Soviet, Iranian, Saudi, etc., etc. influences and contributions, but with leadership comes responsibility. He brought the country to where it ended up before Iraq war 2.
The time to intervene (for the world) was when Iraq and Iran were at war, and when Saddam was putting down the Kurd, Shia revolts of 1991.
Sure, why not? Nevertheless, it didn't happen, and Saddam's subsequent leadership brought the country to Iraq war 2.
It disgusts me to listen to right wingers now when they say that the UN is hapless, when its actions on Iraq (and elsewhere) have been, until 2003 anyway, dominated by US intervention and influence.
Sure, the US's resposibility for the haplessness of the UN is equal to the US's influence on that organization. The main exception being the failure of the UN to sanction Iraq war 2 when everything headed in that direction for the preceding 6 months. The US made a decent effort to get the UN behind the idea of enforcing the 14 resolutions Iraq had ignored, and the Frenchies screwed it up. If the UN had agreed to remove Saddam rather than refuse (because he deserved another 3 months???) the chances for democracy in the ME would be that much stronger today. |
