Liberal interventionism is dead
Shattered illusions
Liberal interventionism is dead and Timothy Garton Ash has just buried it
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- Conor Foley
- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday September 07 2008 11:00 BST
Timothy Garton Ash was one of the most articulate and influential advocates of "liberal interventionism" and so his effective recantation of the doctrine yesterday should not go unremarked. In a subtle re-branding exercise he declared instead for "liberal internationalism", which he defined in the following way.
Liberal internationalism does not mean marching into other people's countries and telling the locals what's good for them down the barrel of a gun. It means developing a set of norms and rules by which most states will abide, preferably made explicit in international law and sustained by international organisations. It posits some basic rights that belong to every human being on this planet, whatever her or his "culture", circumstances or rulers. It aims to strike a balance between the universal and the particular. It seeks to build peace between nations on these foundations.
Now contrast that with what he described at the time as an "excellent speech" by David Miliband from earlier this year in which the foreign secretary said:
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