Doing the right thing
DEAR SIR — For now, forced sanity has prevailed in the US in deciding not to attack Syria (Russian proposal ‘ must not be delaying tactic’, September 11). The tyrannical regime of Bashar alAssad lives another day as it prepares to resume its civil war. The Middle East as a whole can restart its devastating religious and ethnic rivalries without interference. Military Keynesianism says unending conflicts are profitable for armament merchants and reconstruction engineers.
But what made the US assume a right to continue playing enforcer and referee while totally disregarding the United Nations, African Union and the Arab League? Or, more importantly, is this an outcome of the US feeling the pangs of its decline in world affairs since 9/11? Conditions that precipitated the fall of the Roman Empire are evident in our times: financial crises, religious terrorism, incurable pandemics, rising rival empires and natural disasters.
It beggars belief why the US willfully ignores the lessons of history. President Barack Obama’s excuses in gunning for Syria are a slapdash plagiarism of George Bush’s before the second Gulf War. Perhaps this is a reason Cornel West describes Mr Obama as a “republican in blackface”.
Progressives view the gun-slinging attitude of North America as unsuitable for the 21st century where preferred ways of resolving conflicts involve multipolarity and social compacts. After all, its foreign policy misadventures are known such as the wanton destruction of Iraq sans finding weapons of mass destruction, extra-legal assassinations and drone executions of civilians.
Even sadder for the US fate arguably will be the world’s attitude after Mr Obama completes his second term. The general goodwill showered on Mr Obama after the hawkish era of Mr Bush won’t be there for the next president even if the person elected is a woman, homosexual or another minority representative.
JM Coetzee was accurate when he said “all that matters is doing the right thing, whether for the right reason or the wrong reason or no reason at all”.
Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, the dissenting British MPs and the majority at the Russian Group of 20 summit knew — and acted on — what was right.