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The “Parochial” Desire to Avoid Unnecessary Wars

Unsurprisingly, Nick Cohen wants intervention in Syria: It is a sign of the parochial spirit of the age [bold mine-DL] that the modest proposal by Britain and France to fill the vacuum by threatening to arm rebels has been greeted with fury on the right and left. I accept that it is hard after Iraq […]

Unsurprisingly, Nick Cohen wants intervention in Syria:

It is a sign of the parochial spirit of the age [bold mine-DL] that the modest proposal by Britain and France to fill the vacuum by threatening to arm rebels has been greeted with fury on the right and left. I accept that it is hard after Iraq to talk of the national interest or of Nato or the EU’s interest. But the facts of grand strategy have not changed. Even if you can suppress all humanitarian impulses, it is not in the west’s interest to have an Assad regime more beholden to Iran than ever on the shores of the Mediterranean.

I suppose the urge to plunge into other nations’ conflicts is evidence of, what, cosmopolitanism? It’s amazing to me that there are still people that think this way after twelve years of non-stop foreign wars for the U.S. and Britain. If it is “parochial” to want to avoid unnecessary foreign wars, we should always hope to live in such an age.

Anglo-American reluctance to start their third war in ten years at a time when both are still engaged in fighting in Afghanistan is perfectly sensible, and it is especially so when we consider that no significant American, British, NATO, or European interest is at stake in Syria. It is quite easy to talk of the national interest in Iraq, provided that one was never so foolish as to believe that invading Iraq was in the national interest of America or Britain. It is even easier in the case of Syria where the interests of both countries are served by not increasing their involvement in the conflict.

Most NATO members are understandably leery of any new “out of area” wars after Afghanistan and Libya, and there is no appetite in any NATO country for greater involvement in Syria. Syria’s conflict has nothing to do with the EU. If Assad’s regime survives and becomes “more beholden” to Iran than before, that is not a major change from the old status quo. The West has lived with the Iranian-Syrian relationship for decades, and Western governments have no reason to take unnecessary risks to end it.

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