Preventing Atrocity in the Age of Trump

There is no phrase in foreign policy as simultaneously compelling and suggestive of a goal beyond reach as never again. These words, which allude to the Holocaust, urge action in the face of atrocities. But they are most often honored in the breach.

Consider the recent record. At the end of February, the UN Security Council dithered for days over an ineffective ceasefire resolution while troops under the command of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, murdered hundreds of civilians in Eastern Ghouta. Indeed, for seven years, the Assad regime and others have slaughtered civilians with impunity in a civil war that has claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in Yemen has created a humanitarian crisis. Burma’s ethnic cleansing campaign has turned over 650,000 Rohingya into refugees. Brutal ethnic and political violence has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives in South Sudan. This is not a record that inspires confidence in never again.

Yet one does not have to reach too far back to find a moment when prospects for stopping atrocities looked brighter. In late 2008, as Barack Obama prepared to” for prevention. Ending genocide and other mass atrocities, they postulated, was an “achievable goal.”