OPINION: Why You Should Be Anti-Interventionist

Graffiti on the Picasso Sculpture in Daley Plaza in Chicago, Illinois, denouncing US plans to invade Iraq (Wikimedia Commons)

Since the Second World War, the United States has become the world's most powerful country, even through 5 decades of bitter rivalry with the USSR during the Cold War. With this global supremacy, the United States assumed the role of the global policeman, imposing its will on the world by intervening in other sovereign states. Many U.S. presidents have attempted to defend this interventionist behavior by stating that the United States is trying to craft a better world based on the ideals of democracy, human rights, and global trade.

I believe the United States has never been a defender of democracy. In fact, the U.S. government has often subverted democracy in many regions of the world. The claim that the United States should take a more active role in intervening in the affairs of sovereign states is irresponsible at best.

Indeed, with the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, many political commentators and journalists have argued in favor of direct U.S. military involvement to protect other nations. They argue that the United States has historically been an overall force for good in international relations and should continue to function as the global protector of democracy via military intervention in regions where democracy is threatened. Apologists support this perspective with baseless claims that the United States has a vested interest in the continued existence of democracy and national sovereignty worldwide.

Nowhere is the United States's utter disregard for democracy and unabashed support of dictatorships more apparent than in Latin America. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration authorized a CIA operation codenamed PBSuccess that succeeded in overthrowing the second democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz. Before the coup, Árbenz had attempted to implement a land redistribution policy that sought to eliminate the American corporation United Fruit Company's near-monopoly on arable land. Árbenz's policies aroused American suspicions that communists had infiltrated the Guatemalan government. 

The United Fruit Company, which had many connections in the upper echelons of the State Department and federal government, lobbied successfully for American intervention in Guatemala. The CIA and the Eisenhower administration then installed General Castillo Armas as dictator of Guatemala with the help of a mercenary army. Árbenz was forced into exile, unable to return. Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed Armas dictatorship enjoyed free rein to brutally oppress the people of Guatemala, plunging the country into a state of political instability for decades. I doubt that the Guatemalan people would agree that the United States protected their democracy and improved their human rights.

Guatemala was not the only country who endured democratic destruction at the hands of the United States. The United States has either been directly involved or assisted in the overthrow of democratically elected governments such as Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran in 1953, Patrice Lumumba in Congo in 1961, Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic in 1964, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and has supported dictatorships in all these countries. 

The United States also endorsed dictatorships such as the Goulart regime in Brazil, the Diem regime in South Vietnam, the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, General Suharto in Indonesia, and Syngman Rhee in South Korea. These U.S.-backed regimes brutally oppressed their populations, restricted freedom of expression, and murdered millions of political dissidents. 

I would imagine that pro-interventionists could argue that although the United States had a brutal foreign policy during the Cold War, it has now risen to its democratic ideals. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In 2003, the United States government under the Bush administration invaded Iraq and overthrew the Ba’athist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The official invasion lasted seven years, although U.S. troops remain in Iraq today, with the resultant chaos leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. The justification? The American government falsely claimed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was harboring members of Al-Qaeda. 

But, of course, U.S. officials failed to produce meaningful evidence for either claim. Since the invasion, Iraq remains embroiled in political instability, leading to the rise of other terrorist organizations, including ISIS. At least the U.S. invasion allowed foreign oil companies to exploit Iraq's natural resources, leading to huge profits. So much for "humanitarian intervention."

The narrative since the war in Iraq was that the invasion was a “mistake” or a “blunder,” but it is wrong to say that U.S. interventionism has failed. On the contrary, interventionism has achieved exactly what it intended. The United States has never been interested in creating a democratic world or freeing oppressed peoples from dictatorship, only one that serves its business interests. Even today, the United States is committed to maintaining its hegemony through any means necessary, such as by supporting Saudi Arabia in its brutal and inhumane blockade of Yemen. The United States does not seem passionate about protecting democracy, human rights, and sovereignty. Instead, its passion lies in business interests, oil, and power. 

There is one lesson we should take away from the United States’s legacy of interventionism: U.S. foreign policy has contributed to an international system in which bullies dominate weaker nations, international laws and norms are constantly subverted, and might makes right. 

Military intervention, therefore, is rarely the best course of action when dealing with geopolitical conflicts. It is foolish to assume that a nation whose foreign policy has been defined by ruthless aggression and complete disregard for international law will do the right thing today. We all want the world to become a more peaceful and stable place. To that end, a multipolar system that does not allow a single country to achieve hegemonic status over the rest, combined with a commitment to diplomacy, will be necessary.