Questions before going into Darfur

One is that it is better to intervene where we don't have major security interests than where we do. Feingold opposed from the beginning our intervention in Iraq, and Biden, who voted for the Iraq war resolution, now wants us to move toward withdrawing. Yet Iraq is in a critical part of the world for us, and a speedy withdrawal from Iraq would be, as the Iraq Study Group concluded, a terrible blow to our national interest.

Any intervention in Darfur, through sanctions or military force, would be strictly humanitarian, like our interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. We had little in the way of national security interests there -- local civil wars were not able to embroil Europe in crisis. But Bill Clinton decided to intervene militarily, and most Democrats supported him. They approved our intervention there precisely because it was humanitarian and not in pursuit of security interests.

The other thing they have in common is a preference for multilateral over unilateral intervention. Biden wants the United Nations and the African Union to be involved, although the African Union force has so far been ineffective and the record of U.N. forces in Africa is abysmal. Any major military force is going to be a largely American force, for the simple reason that the United States has most of the world's out-of-area military capacity. Feingold thinks sanctions will be stronger if they're endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and the "international community." That's true, but it probably leaves the people of Darfur with a long time to wait.

Democrats like Biden and Feingold seem to want the United States to abide by children's playground rules. It's selfish when you intervene to help yourself, but it's acceptable when you intervene to help others. It's egotistical when you do things alone, but it's commendable when you play well with others. But those rules aren't much help when a child molester stalks the playground. Sometimes you have to act alone and act out of self-interest to prevent evil people from doing evil things.