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Staying Out of Libya

Speaking of public opinion and foreign policy, Scoblete cites a new Rasmussen poll that casts more doubt on Mead’s tendentious interpretation of “the commonsense reasoning of the American people”: However, as with the recent turmoil in Egypt, most Americans (67%) say the United States should leave the situation in the Arab countries alone. Just 17% […]

Speaking of public opinion and foreign policy, Scoblete cites a new Rasmussen poll that casts more doubt on Mead’s tendentious interpretation of “the commonsense reasoning of the American people”:

However, as with the recent turmoil in Egypt, most Americans (67%) say the United States should leave the situation in the Arab countries alone. Just 17% say the United States should get more directly involved in the political situation there, but another 17% are not sure.

Americans are skeptical about the political changes that are likely to come from the growing – and, in Libya’s case, violent – protests. Thirty percent (30%) believe it is at least somewhat likely that most of these Arab countries will become free, democratic and peaceful over the next few years, but that includes just four percent (4%) who say it is Very Likely. Sixty-one percent (61%) view a democratic and peaceful outcome as unlikely, with 14% who say it is Not At All Likely.

As Greg says:

If we’re talking about common sense, not plunging the United States and NATO into an incipient civil war in a Middle Eastern country with strong tribal factions seems to qualify.

Quite so. As skeptical as I was of Mead’s claim about what “the American people” want, I am impressed by how much support there is for a relatively hands-off U.S. response to these events. The prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have deepened public skepticism about the wisdom of U.S. interventions in general, but I’m a bit surprised that the skepticism is this great.

Of course, the public debate doesn’t include very many advocates for the majority view. This speaks volumes about the relationship between actual policy debates and public opinion. It seems unimaginable to most of the participants in foreign policy debate that a minimal or neutral role could be the appropriate and best answer to the question of how the U.S. should respond. However, if ever there were a occasion to exercise caution and restraint in using U.S. power and influence, responding to an internal conflict in a country where the U.S. has little influence and no reservoir of goodwill would seem to be it.

Hawkish interventionists always want to plunge the U.S. into conflicts in which Americans have no stake and no part, and we have been paying the price for repeatedly giving into that impulse over the last twenty years. The U.S. cannot be completely uninvolved when political crises affect allied governments, but there isn’t an argument for inserting the U.S. into an internal Libyan conflict. It is appropriate to provide humanitarian aid to the population where possible, and imposing or rather re-imposing sanctions on the Libyan regime might make sense in this case, but beyond that there is no obvious U.S. role in this conflict.

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