No intervention in Zimbabwe

Columnist Simon Jenkins writes on the crisis in Zimbabwe in The Guardian newspaper, arguing against intervention: "We've done enough damage. All we can do is send food. ... The much-abused history of commercial sanctions shows that any protracted squeeze leads only to internal economic adjustment. Control of money and goods shifts from merchants to rulers, driving the former to exile and increasing the wealth of the latter. ... There is no alternative for Britain to sitting out the Zimbabwean tragedy, impotent on the sidelines. If Africa wants to help its own, it will. If not, so be it. ... So-called liberal interventionism is a will-o'-the-wisp, a vapid, feel-good refashioning of foreign policy in response to a headline event, motivated by self-interest or passing mood. We should send food to the starving of Zimbabwe because that is something we can do, however much Mugabe distorts the supply."

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