"Anti-war" argument #4: Public opinion is against a strike

Note: for a list of arguments and responses (one per post) and more background on why I'm doing this, see this index page.

Note 2: I'll focus this on the U.S. but analogous arguments and counterarguments can be made for the U.K. or other countries.

There is no denying that public opinion in the West and in particular in the U.S. is not in favor of a strike on the Syrian regime, with approval rates in the U.S. ranging between 25% and 29%. Non-Baathist opponents of U.S. military intervention in Syria, a.k.a the "anti-war" crowd, have made the argument implicitly and explicitly that a strike would be anti-democratic and therefore immoral.

For instance, The Telegraph's Peter Foster reports on "one anti-intervention congressman (Justin Amash of Michigan) tweeting that calls to his office were 200 against action, and only four in favour [sic sic ew British English]."

One one hand, this is a good point for a Congressman to make, since his job is to listen to his constituents and vote on their behalf. On the other hand, I think that, in certain cases, and I'll argue that this is one of them, national or humanitarian interests and values can and should trump popular opinion. I am trying to make a more limited argument than it looks: I am saying that the decision of whether or not to strike Syria is the type of decision that needs to be more insulated from popular opinion. I'll justify my claim by taking you back to the Iraq war.

If you're opposed to the war in Syria, you are probably also of the opinion - which I share - that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy; it was a terrible moral and strategic mistake. I found this really cool Wikipedia page on "Popular opinion in the United States on the invasion of Iraq," it seems well cited and it gives us the following regarding U.S. public opinion:

• Opposition to military action against Iraq was 27% a month before the invasion (02/03).
• Popular support for going to Iraq without going through the UN Security Council was at 47% days before the invasion (03/03).
• It was 62% after the beginning of the war (03/03).
• It was 79% two months into the war (05/03).

The point I'm making is that the moral case for or against a war should be separated from what is unfortunately a deeply uninformed and ignorant public when it comes to anything beyond U.S. borders (for instance, according to this CBS poll, in April 2003, 53% of Americans thought that "Saddam was personally involved in the September 11th attacks."). I think the Iraq war was unjust, criminal, stupid, and wrong regardless of what the U.S. public thought and I demand intellectual honesty on Syria from those who share my opinion on Iraq.

The U.S. public is against a strike on Syria because of fatigue and because of realizing how blind it was when it came to Iraq. Their response to any other kind of intervention would be the same even if the moral or strategic case for that intervention was clearer and more compelling than the case Syria presents. It follows that U.S. public opinion is important in an amoral type of political analysis but it does not really contribute to any compelling moral argument against or in favor of the war.

Another thought I'll share quickly because this post is already long is that austerity measures are never popular, yet we go against popular opinion and implement them in certain cases of recession because economists know that it's the right policy option and there's no way around it - econ is not my area of expertise but it looks to me like Grece is one of these cases. here's a danger in delegating every decision to experts and their false neutrality, but there's an equal danger in putting the ideal of (direct) democracy above everything else, especially given that the public tends to be too reactionary and short-sighted. I'm more ambivalent about following this line of thought because of the problems it poses when you fall on either side, but it's something everyone who cares about democracy and politics should think about seriously.