While the Tehran regime holds its breath in the face of the prospect of American military intervention, in a context of brutal repression of popular demonstrations, the debate on the “duty to interfere” resurfaces. As with every major crisis, as with every uprising crushed in blood, this notion returns to impose itself in the public space, carried by emotion, brandished as moral evidence, almost as an injunction to act. All wrapped up in a simple idea: since the injustice is manifest, external intervention would not only be legitimate, but necessary.
The duty to intervene, conceptualized in the 1970s and 1980s, emerged at a time when the United States saw itself as the guarantor of world order, and sometimes as the natural liberators of oppressed peoples. The idea was simple, and in some ways attractive: when a state seriously oppresses its own population, the international community would have the right – even the duty – to intervene to put an end to this oppression. Beneath a humanitarian exterior, this doctrine combines universalism of human rights, emergency morality and belief in the capacity of great powers to reshape the destiny of nations.
Obviously, the mullahs’ regime is indefensible. This authoritarian theocracy imprisons, tortures, executes. It represses its people, terrorizes its opponents, stifles all dissent and maintains a rhetoric of permanent hatred towards Israel and the West. It would take much more than a forum to draw up an inventory of the crimes of a power which transformed an ancient civilization, heir to Persia, into a society under permanent surveillance. So make no mistake: this is neither about relativizing nor exonerating. On the contrary, it is about unambiguously supporting these courageous women and men who, at the risk of their lives, defy a bloodthirsty regime.
Recent history should invite us to exercise some caution
This being clearly stated, a question remains: should this revolution be carried out with the help of Westerners? And even more, under the threat or military protection of the United States? From there, the debate changes its nature. Recent history should invite us to exercise some caution. Interventions carried out in the name of freedom have often produced results contrary to their stated intentions. In Iraq, the 2003 intervention, justified by democracy and international security, certainly overthrew a dictator, but above all it destroyed a state, provoked a lasting civil war and opened the way to regional chaos. In Libya, the 2011 intervention, although backed by an international mandate, left behind a fragmented country, left to militias, trafficking and chronic instability. In Afghanistan, finally, twenty years of Western presence ended with the return to power of the very people they claimed to have defeated.
A deep ambiguity
These repeated failures do not mean that any intervention is illegitimate in principle. They remind us of an elementary truth that the West sometimes seems to forget: we cannot permanently liberate a people from the outside. Democracy is neither a turnkey model nor a military export product. The duty to interfere also suffers from profound ambiguity. Behind the humanitarian discourse, strategic, energy or geopolitical interests are sometimes hidden. Not all tragedies arouse the same indignation, not all repressions generate the same mobilization. This selectivity weakens the moral impact of interference and feeds the suspicion, sometimes justified, of a universalism with variable geometry.
On a legal level, then, armed interference without a clear international mandate constitutes a challenge to the fundamental principle of sovereignty of nations. But international law is not a procedural detail. It is the fragile foundation on which a minimum of world order rests. Freeing oneself from it, even in the name of just causes, ultimately amounts to rehabilitating the law of the strongest. Finally, interference often produces counterproductive political effects. In authoritarian regimes, the foreign threat becomes a tool of domestic power. In the past, it has made it possible to delegitimize opponents, accused of collusion with the enemy, to strengthen nationalism and to toughen up repression.
In a Gaullian tradition, foreign policy must be both moral and lucid
The responsibility to protect, as it has been defined at the international level, targets extreme situations: genocides, crimes against humanity, mass massacres. It was never intended to militarily transform non-democratic regimes. To confuse these registers is to open the way to permanent instability and a diplomacy of emotion.
In a Gaullian tradition, foreign policy must be both moral and lucid. It rejects both humanitarian blindness and brutal cynicism. Supporting people who are rising up, yes. Help them diplomatically, medially, economically, without reservation. But substituting their fight for a Western crusade, no. The greatness of a nation is not measured by its propensity to intervene everywhere, but by its ability to distinguish indignation from strategy. When it comes to interference, caution is not a weakness. It is, very often, a higher form of responsibility.
