Interests

By Ezra

Tim Cavanaugh is writing in bad faith:

what's the clear categorical distinction between intervening in Iraq (which I think it's fair to say Clooney and many other Darfur hawks opposed) and this one? Why does it always seem like progressives support any intervention that clearly does not advance any American interests? (I don't think invading Iraq advanced our national interests, but people made that case, which you definitely can't in the case of Sudan.)

The crucial question here is, of course, what constitutes the national interest. Cavanaugh doesn't think invading Iraq was in the national interest, and nor did Clooney, or many of the "Darfur hawks" (it's indicative of the post's intellectual dishonesty that Cavanaugh tags Clooney for denying the benefits of a war Cavanaugh thought senseless and harmful). So they didn't support the invasion. Seems about right. Indeed, Cavanaugh seems to forget how few recent American invasions actually have been clear cases of the national interest. The Afghanistan invasion, which "Darfur hawks" supported, was such a case, and the unanimity around that venture demolishes Cavanaugh's implication.

As for his plaintive query regarding all these humanitarian hawks who support invasions that don't measure up to the cool calculations of foreign policy realists, what he's actually talking about is support for genocide interventions in Rwanda, Kosovo, and Darfur. And while such instances may not be exemplars of the national interest, many of us believe that stepping in to prevent the wholesale extermination of a people is in our interest as human beings. Cavanaugh wants to spin that into some wooly-eyed weakness or, better yet, subtle attempt to undermine the country's international welfare. That, it seems, is his interest.