Examples are legion. Zimbabwe is a basket case, in which millions of people have died because of an aging tyrant who amuses himself by toying with the rest of the world and pretending to be reforming. In Rwanda, upwards of half a million people were murdered in cruel and crazed ways, mostly by their neighbors, simply because they were members of a different tribe. Somalia is universally agreed to be a failed state with a huge displaced and helpless population, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge systematically slaughtered a quarter of its people, and Myanmar and North Korea are ruled by unelected and transparently illegitimate regimes whose citizens lack most basic needs, to say nothing of freedom. And this is merely a fraction of such cases.
Yet we are told by those who could make a difference (governments, the UN, global NGO's, and people in positions of influence) that there is nothing more we can do because we cannot interfere with sovereign states. Obviously, the USA made a major exception for Afghanistan and Iraq, justifying them as legitimate responses to acts of war. But if millions of people in other countries are being killed or their lives made worthless, we are asked only to pray for them. Do we have to stand idly by when this is happening?
Maybe Not. (I would actually make this stronger; "Bah, humbug" seems more apt.) The very concept of sovereignty needs dramatic reconsideration and adjustment. What, after all, is its rationale? There are many, but the ones most used to excuse our failures to act make little or no sense now. Let's start with a real old chestnut -- the citizens of a state are the ones who should make those decisions, and until they do, we should not interfere. (An important corollary is that we don't want anyone else to try to interfere with our own sins.)
Of course: if country has a functioning political system based on open elections and freely expressed preferences, they have every right to be left to do as they wish. But if they are not able nor allowed to act this way, they have forgone any right to be managed by self-appointed or forcible rulers. There is also a residual cynical real-politik view (Remember Henry Kissinger, anyone?) Leaving other countries alone is OK as long as their problems don't really affect us. In our now complex interwoven world system, highly destructive technologies cannot be contained. Finally, and not least, most countries, and certainly mine, want desperately to avoid any hint of softening this position, which would give others an argument for interfering with us.
We can do better. President Obama has the credibility and, I suspect, the beliefs, that might allow him to raise this issue directly. That would be a wonderful gift to the generations to come.
