Telegraph: UN air strikes show West's new appetite for military action

An article published yesterday in The Telegraph by NY correspondent Jon Swaine demonstrates that any textbook is only truly up-to-date on the day it is submitted to the publisher:

The UN air strikes in Ivory Coast suggest Libya was no fluke: the West's appetite for military action has recovered robustly from the diplomatic trauma of the Iraq war.

After a brief honeymoon following the successful mission to protect Kosovo in 1999, it seemed the Blairite era of "liberal interventionism" had been buried along with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

The chaos after the steamrollering of the UN Security Council by Tony Blair and George W. Bush in 2002-03 seemed likely to usher in a new period of isolationism.

Barack Obama swept to power in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, while David Cameron entered Downing Street last year insisting that the West "can't drop democracy from 40,000ft".

Yet the past three weeks have found the council – this time with a less noisy Anglo-American wing – willing to pass stunningly powerful resolutions allowing missile strikes against murderous leaders.

Both resolution 1973 on Libya and resolution 1975 on Ivory Coast give external forces the authority to take "all necessary" measures to protect civilians from violence – practically a carte blanche.

A Western diplomat at the UN last night said the resolutions showed members were taking seriously the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, adopted in 2006, promising "timely and decisive action" against atrocities.

"TV pictures and the threat of humanitarian catastrophe have made people not want to wait for massacres to happen, as in Rwanda," he said, in language strikingly reminiscent of the Blair-Clinton era.

The diplomat said that crucial in both cases had been the endorsement of action by the respective regional authorities – on Libya, the Arab League and on Ivory Coast, Ecowas and the African Union.

"It's very difficult if you're Russia or China to say 'no' if the Arabs and the Africans themselves are saying 'yes'," he said.

Also important has been the belligerence of Paris. The site of the Chirac-era "Non!" has become gung-ho, ensuring military – and symbolic – backing from the European mainland.

While Mr Obama has stayed almost invisible, the domestically embattled Nicolas Sarkozy has taken personal "ownership" of both interventions, rushing out his statements before anyone else.

It may not last. "There will be a price to pay for rushing these things through," the diplomat said. "The Indians are very unhappy and agreed only reluctantly."

But for the time being, the "something must be done" attitude of the late 1990s – and talk of a single-willed "international community" – has made a surprise return to New York's Turtle Bay.