Matt (at his swank new digs) points to this Democracy Arsenal post which, in turn, references a new survey on US public support for humanitarian intervention in Darfur. It seems that the American public is, overall, supportive of an increased US role in clamping down on genocide in Sudan. The conversation that has developed from this, thanks to Matt, is whether or not public opinion itself is really what’s behind the US’s notorious aversion to stepping into humanitarian crises. Here’s Matt’s view:
…My impression is that political hesitancy about purely humanitarian interventions stems less from concern about unpopularity per se than from risk-assessment.
Roughly speaking, the issue is that nobody believes that a politician will pay a political price for not intervening. Conversely, it’s clear that if an intervention winds up going awry for whatever reason, its advocates will suffer in the public eye. Advocates of intervention like to stress that relatively modest measures could accomplish a great deal, but the reality of military actions is that they’re unpredictable, and there’s always some chance of serious problems rearing their head. Under those circumstances, the odds suggest that politicians should be very forthcoming with professions of deep concern but extremely reluctant to actually do anything about it. Not coincidentally, that’s historically been the American response to genocide.
This is right on, basically. Of course people are going to be for stopping genocide (I don’t know anyone who’s all, “Yay, mass graves!”), so the initial poll really means little here. It’s when something goes wrong in the process of attempting to prevent genocide that public opinion wanes and opinion polls accurately portray the true sentiment.
So, why are troops still in Iraq if public opinion has turned so strongly against it? Policymakers weigh whether or not public displeasure is important or not, and in the case of Darfur and similar situations public sentiment has traditionally trumped moral responsibility. However, negative public opinion has not forced the administration to pull its troops from Iraq. The basic premise of that war as being a portion of the war on terror, now that the WMD claims have been confirmed as erroneous, makes it passable for policymakers even as more and more Americans turn against the effort. A number of politicians and policymakers are confident in shouldering that backlash because they’ve convinced themselves that the battle is part of a much larger war for the United States’ survival. When it comes to something like Darfur where there’s nothing to truly connect it to the collective American consciousness it becomes more difficult for policymakers to get behind intervention and all its possible negative consequences. Sad, but, I believe, true for both Democratic and Republican politicians and administrations.
Cross-posted to Digital Dissent.