Stephen Kinzer: Why the US must not intervene in Libya
[Stephen Kinzer is a former New York Times reporter and the author of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq and Reset Middle East: Old Friends and New Alliances: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey,Iran.]
The urge to intervene around the world may truly have become hardwired into the American psyche. How else to explain the seriousness with which some in Washington are suggesting that the United States take sides in the unfolding civil war in Libya?
The US is fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Since the results have included thousands of dead Americans, a near-bankrupt treasury and a surge in anti-Americanism in the world's most volatile region, launching a third war might seem unwise. Intervening in Libya would require the US to take sides in a highly obscure conflict. Any group the US helps bring to power would be heavily tainted, and Americans would have to defend it in an explosive environment.
And few people in the Middle East, or anywhere else, would believe that the US had intervened in an oil-rich Arab state without being interested in securing its oil.
Intervention in Libya has all the makings of another Middle East quagmire...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
The urge to intervene around the world may truly have become hardwired into the American psyche. How else to explain the seriousness with which some in Washington are suggesting that the United States take sides in the unfolding civil war in Libya?
The US is fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Since the results have included thousands of dead Americans, a near-bankrupt treasury and a surge in anti-Americanism in the world's most volatile region, launching a third war might seem unwise. Intervening in Libya would require the US to take sides in a highly obscure conflict. Any group the US helps bring to power would be heavily tainted, and Americans would have to defend it in an explosive environment.
And few people in the Middle East, or anywhere else, would believe that the US had intervened in an oil-rich Arab state without being interested in securing its oil.
Intervention in Libya has all the makings of another Middle East quagmire...