From Washington Straight: Falklands Soul-Searching

The stark and bitter polarity between Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick serves at least one useful purpose: it defines the exact status questionis on the issue of whether the United States should have quit its neutrality in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. Neutrality is neutrality; it is not, by definition, support, real or camouflaged. Mrs. Kirkpatrick has taken a lot of gratuitous grief because the press falsely premised that a “stay neutral” position was tantamount to a “support Argentina” one, which is certainly not true in theory, nor in the South Atlantic crisis, nor in the context of the Ambassador’s personal views, viz., she holds no brief for the Argentinians’ use of force to repossess the islands.

The withholding of support from all the belligerents in a conflict is a traditional policy of the United States that dates from George Washington’s neutrality proclamation of 1793 and Jefferson’s policies and attitudes during the Napoleonic wars. Ambassador Kirkpatrick believes that neutrality was required for us in the Falklands dispute by our NATO commitment, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Rio Treaty. She argues that once having assumed the role of mediator at the request of both sides, we thereby abandoned, practically speaking, the right later to take sides; that forsaking the neutral position in midstream tainted the whole earlier mediation effort by suggesting that the presumptive impartiality was a sham; that jettisoning neutrality (and, consequently, the role of arbitrator) would propel the British into a more hardline stance than they would otherwise have taken (many at State now concur with this); and, finally, that siding with Britain would open up a Pandora’s box in Latin America.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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The stark and bitter polarity between Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick serves at least one useful purpose: it defines the exact status questionis on the issue of whether the United States should have quit its neutrality in the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. Neutrality is neutrality; it is not, by definition, support, real or camouflaged. Mrs. Kirkpatrick has taken a lot of gratuitous grief because the press falsely premised that a “stay neutral” position was tantamount to a “support Argentina” one, which is certainly not true in theory, nor in the South Atlantic crisis, nor in the context of the Ambassador’s personal views, viz., she holds no brief for the Argentinians’ use of force to repossess the islands.

The withholding of support from all the belligerents in a conflict is a traditional policy of the United States that dates from George Washington’s neutrality proclamation of 1793 and Jefferson’s policies and attitudes during the Napoleonic wars. Ambassador Kirkpatrick believes that neutrality was required for us in the Falklands dispute by our NATO commitment, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Rio Treaty. She argues that once having assumed the role of mediator at the request of both sides, we thereby abandoned, practically speaking, the right later to take sides; that forsaking the neutral position in midstream tainted the whole earlier mediation effort by suggesting that the presumptive impartiality was a sham; that jettisoning neutrality (and, consequently, the role of arbitrator) would propel the British into a more hardline stance than they would otherwise have taken (many at State now concur with this); and, finally, that siding with Britain would open up a Pandora’s box in Latin America.