The US did the right thing about toppling Ghaddafi in 2011, but was remiss in foregoing the opportunity to throw Assad that same year: that is, it neglected its responsibilities as a great power. I have tried to explain this to some of my nationalist friends, but they don't really understand this at all, being unaccustomed to thinking like Bismarck, Hitler, Frederick the Great - in terms of realpolitik and machtpolitik.
Yockey illustrates my point better in his chapter 'The Law of Protection and Obedience' in Imperium (1947). Yockey defines the Law as 'To him who supplies protection also goes obedience... It will go either voluntarily, as the result of persuasion, or as the result of force'. In other words: Syria belongs to America or to some other great power and forms part of a political organism, and unless it descends into anarchy, cannot not be part of a political organism. If it is to exist, it must be ruled by someone. That someone - the sovereign ruler - demands obedience, and in exchange for that obedience, he protects that territory and its people from incorporation into rival states.
Yockey gives a concrete application of this: Europe - and Germany - in the immediate aftermath of the war, with the two halves under the occupation of the Americans and the Russians respectively:
Once more the words protection and obedience have also been used with an entire absence of any moral content. Thus “protection” can mean unlimited terror by military means, and “obedience” may be a reflection of the alternative of the concentration camp. The condition of occupied Europe under extra-European armies is protection within the meaning of this organic law. Even though these extra-European armies are starving and torturing the populace, nevertheless they are protecting that part of Europe from incorporation by another political unit. America protects its half from Russia and Russia protects its half from America. Thus the word is neutral vis-à-vis the disjunction of altruism-egoism. Protection is not kindliness, it is acquisition of power. Obedience is not gratitude, it is political submission from whatever motive.
Other examples of the law in action: feudalism, 'Western protectorates' and federalism:
This Law describes Western feudalism, for instance. Feudalism is the strongest political system that can arise. It is integrated inwardly and outwardly... The basic formulation of the feudal Idea is nothing but Protection and Obedience.
Protectorates such as Western international law recognizes are examples of the law. It also describes any federal units that arise. The central government is the only political one, for it protects and thus receives political obedience.
What happens if the rulers of a State don't pay attention to this law? The weakness of the political organism and possibly its death:
Looking at the organism inwardly, the amount of protection and the amount of obedience, and the quality of these things, describes the inner strength of the unit. A high degree of protection and a high degree of obedience constitute an integrated organism that can stand the test of politics. Such an organism can often prevail against great odds. A low degree of the protection-obedience relationship describes a unit that is inwardly weak. It cannot stand a real hard struggle, and will often succumb in a test even to an organism with fewer material means and numbers.
Thus when in the 20th century an organism dare not conscript a population within its area, such an area is one of inner weakness; and cannot be counted part of the political body. Such a situation can only continue as long as such an area is not the focus of political tension.
Yockey more or less anticipates what happened to Syria following its disintegration in 2011:
The existential nature of the Law is also shown by the fact that if a State is unable to protect an area and population within its system, that area and population will pass into the system of another State that can protect and has the will to protect. The passing may be by revolt, it may be by war. It may be by negotiation, particularly if the protecting State allows a quasi-government to exist in the protected area, which can make a private understanding with other powers to deliver to them the population and territory.
In 2011, so far as Libya was concerned, the US was able to 'protect an area and population within its system' - i.e., it was able to protect the rebels; in Syria, it was unwilling to protect, and so allowed the area and population to 'pass into the system of another State that can protect and has the will to protect'. The US, the protecting power in this instance, did allow a 'quasi-government to exist in the protected area' - in fact, more than one quasi-government: the Assad rump regime, the Kurdish-held area, the rebel-held area, the Turkish-held area, and, after 2014, the ISIS-held area...
The consequences for Europe of that non-interventionism we all know: for one thing, it has triggered a massive Syrian refugee crisis, which could have been avoided. The US had a window of opportunity in 2011, and in that time had Assad been overthrown (like Ghaddafi) or forced to resign (like Mubarak), then the refugee crisis wouldn't have happened, and neither would the 2015 Cologne New Year's Eve sexual assaults...
The failure of the US to live up to its responsibilities as a power and to accede to weakness in this instance did hurt Europe, the West and the white man. A little 'hawkishness', a little 'liberal interventionism', a little 'neoconservatism', back then would have solved many of the problems afflicting us today; at the least, it wouldn't have hurt. As to why the Obama administration showed such passivity and inaction, one could blame their lack of courage - but one also must blame the poisonous, will-sapping atmosphere created by the isolationists and non-interventionists after the Ghaddafi ouster. In other words, one must blame the Ron Pauls. They, through their thoughts and actions, aided and abetted the rape of the women and girls of Cologne.
But now Trump enters the picture. The US has been bombing Syria for quite some time, often in co-operation with Russia and Assad, so as to prevent areas from falling into the hands of ISIS and the various 'bad' rebel groups. Now Trump has put the population Khan Sheikhoun under his wing and is protecting them from Assad (and, as a corollary, demanding obedience in return). In other words, he is expanding the sphere of US power in Syria. That has shocked the world, but it's something that should have been done long ago. From a political point of view, the more of the Syrian 'area and population' the US can enrol and conscript, the better.
None of this means that I am taking a pro-American position. Any statesman from any great power - Russia or China, for example - in Trump's shoes would be forced to act as he has done, and would be criminally negligent not to have done so. The laws Yockey describes apply universally.
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