![Nature abhors a vacuum and when the UN National Security Council fails to act, the U.S. jumps into the breach – often to disastrous effect. (Photo: Britannica)](http://web.archive.org./web/20171129171046im_/http://fpif.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Security-Council-Britannica.jpg)
Nature abhors a vacuum and when the UN National Security Council fails to act, the U.S. jumps into the breach – often to disastrous effect. (Photo: Britannica)
Since this is the last Focal Points post, I thought I should write about one of my core foreign policy beliefs. Along with Foreign Policy in Focus and most of those who span the spectrum from liberal to left, one of our most pressing concerns is U.S. intervention in foreign affairs.
It began with the Barbary Wars (1801–1805 and 1815) against Morocco and the independent Ottoman Empire provinces Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. How we have come full circle — beginning our foreign intervention in Arabic-speaking countries and returning in the 21st century. But the original intervention was to halt piracy of American merchant ships and concomitant hostage-taking, payable to the rulers of those states. It wasn’t to protect our oil interests or to establish a footprint in the Middle East, as today.
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