America can no longer act as a playground bully and intimidate other countries at will.
ISLAMABAD: America enjoys policing the globe. This fact is not hard to deny. Although Bashar al-Assad has behaved in a truly sadistic and horrific manner, it still doesn’t give America the authority to don the cape of a Superman and come to the rescue of the Syrian people — who never asked for its help. Let us not forget the promises made by Obama’s predecessors to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, who also had to be rescued from equally grotesque regimes. Those same people are now suffering more due to this outside interference in their domestic affairs.
Of course, this does not mean that I am in support of what Bashar alAssad has done, but I believe there is another route in bringing him to justice. As this is a one-man show of defiance and rebellion, what happened to bringing him to the international criminal court, like other tyrants of similar despotic streaks? Why does America deem it absolutely necessary to ignite what could possibly turn into a world war? America has put itself in a very weak position in justifying attacks against Syria when it took no definitive action against Israel for doing exactly what Bashar al-Assad did.
Recently, the British parliament refused outright to participate in military action against Syria and this has further weakened America’s case and caused it greater embarrassment. This week, Russia made the potent suggestion to allow Syria to disarm and hand over its complete stockpile of chemical weapons. This has put another big dent on America’s demand for military action and Obama, on September 11, stated in a televised address that any such action would be postponed till the UN inspector’s official report was released.
America can no longer act as a playground bully and intimidate other countries at will. This makes a mockery of fine institutions like the UN, The Hague and Nato. By picking and choosing which dictators to punish, America risks being labelled a hypocritical state, one that only offers help to others if it is in its own best interests to do so. This is a dangerous way of formulating foreign policy.
Faiza Iqbal
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2013.
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