Aaron,

Try Conor Foley, a fellow Conspirator I think, on the R2P idea. It has been around for yonks, and it makes sense.

Oh yes, it’s been around since at least the time the Bush administration took office – and probably years before that (League of Nations etc).

I think post-Saddam, the subject needs to be-evaluated and “Decent” lefties need to understand how ideological adherence to a premise can be abused. It’s okay getting all arsey about “What’s Left” of the left, but you look a bit of a muppet when you’ve been morally gang-raped by wingnut-thugs in the White House, and you’re still crowing.

Anyway, working around the Chinese and Russians in the UNSC is only half the problem, getting the liberal democracies to actually commit forces (when there isn’t a clear profit motive) is even more difficult.

I agree completely with your second para. One of the criteria of R2P, as I recall it, is to judge whether an intervention is less harmful than doing nothing. We have all had our fingers burned over Iraq but ‘never again’ to intervention is not a great answer either. At least, I don’t think so.

…but ‘never again’ to intervention is not a great answer either. At least, I don’t think so.

Agreed. But few nations actually bought-into Iraq as an “ongoing humanitarian disaster” (although, no doubt, Saddam had used chemical and biological weapons on his internal enemies in the past). Some of the goings-on in Central Africa do scare me, but then the presence of Sudanese oil-fields causes me to pause and think.

Consensus is important.