Richard Fontaine
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endures some 18 years later, having stretched well beyond eradicating
the original al Qaeda perpetrators and their Afghan base. In this view,
as the threats have diminished, so should American attention. The
civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen may be tragic, but they do not
demand a U.S. military response any more than did the atrocities in
Rwanda, eastern Congo, or Darfur.
Adopting such a cramped view o American interests, however, car-
ries its own costs. Terrorism remains a threat, and the eect o successful
attacks on Americans goes beyond their immediate casualties to include
increased pressure to restrict civil liberties at home and wage impromptu
operations abroad—operations that end up being costlier and less eec-
tive than longer-term, better-planned ones would be. After the Islamic
State (or ) took hold in Iraq and Syria and footage o terrorists de-
capitating American hostages horriÄed the public, Obama undertook a
far larger operation than would have likely been necessary had he left a
residual force in Iraq after 2011. As for genocide and civil war, certain
cases can pose such serious threats to U.S. interests, or be so oensive to
American values, as to merit intervention. Successive presidents have
used military might to prevent, halt, or punish mass atrocities—Clinton
to cease the genocide against Bosnian Muslims in the Balkans, Obama
to protect the Yezidi minority in Iraq, and Trump after Bashar al-Assad’s
chemical attacks against his own people in Syria. There is every reason
to believe that similar cases will arise in the future.
The second argument against intervention highlights its supposedly
poor track record. For all o the United States’ good intentions—
stopping terrorists, ending genocide, stabilizing countries, spreading
democracy—Washington simply is not very successful in its attempts.
Iraq and Libya look worse today than when the wars against Saddam
Hussein and Muammar al-QaddaÄ began, and the Taliban currently
control more o Afghanistan than at any time since 2001. Long gone
are U.S. aspirations to turn these countries into democracies that
would radiate liberalism beyond their borders.
Yet this argument ignores the many other times in which the use o
American force worked. It ejected Saddam from Kuwait, it ended a
war in Bosnia, it stopped ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, it paved the way
for a democratic transition in Liberia, and it helped defeat narcoter-
rorists and bring temporary peace to Colombia. Even in Afghanistan,
it should not be forgotten that Washington denied al Qaeda a safe
haven, and in Iraq and Syria, it eliminated ’ physical presence,