A National Interest in Death?

I had another piece on a very interesting spat between the Philippines and China planned for today, but the situation in Syria has really captured my attention, so I will be postponing the Philippines-China story until tomorrow.

Though intervention is a multi-faceted question,Most countries base their decisions to intervene in international conflicts on whether these conflicts are in the national interests of the perspective intervening country.

 I would argue that the national interest question is actually a poor method to use when deciding whether or not to intervene in a conflict.

By not intervening on grounds of national interest, governments are saying that they have no national interest in the conflict.

Yet, these same governments also send a contradictory message that says “Our government has an interest in indirectly causing the death of thousands more people.”

 That’s no message that any government in the Western world should care to send to the international community.

I urge the international community to beware of the unintended messages they send.