“Mr. President, could you update us on your latest thinking of where you think things are in Syria, and in particular, whether you envision using U.S. military, if simply for nothing else, the safe keeping of the chemical weapons, and if you’re confident that the chemical weapons are safe?” 

“I have, at this point, not ordered military engagement in the situation. But the point that you made about chemical and biological weapons is critical ... We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the regime of Syrian president Basshar al-Assad, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is if we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

The question stated above was posed to President Barack Obama by Chuck Todd, an NBC white house correspondent, on Aug. 20, 2012, approximately two years ago. 

On Dec. 23, 2012 reports surfaced of chemical weapons being used on civilians by the Assad regime in Homs, Syria. On March 19, 2013, alleged chemical weapons attacks were reported in Syria’s two main cities, the Khan al-Assel neighborhood of Aleppo and the Damascus suburb of al-Atebeh. And just a few days ago on Aug. 22, 2014, the United Nations put the estimated body count in Syria at 191,000 people. No formal response beyond verbal condemnations has been made by the United States. 

On Aug. 10, 2013 more than 70 people were killed in Iraq by the now infamous group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, capping the deadliest year in Iraq since 2008. 

According to the nongovernmental organization Iraq Body Count, 9,475 civilians were killed in 2013. According to the United Nations, 5,500 civilians have been killed by ISIS in the first half of 2014 alone, with more than 1.2 million being driven from their homes due to the violence. When Obama finally authorized airstrikes in the region on Aug. 9, he made sure to emphasize, “as commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq.”

Our foreign policy is increasingly becoming more isolationist. No longer are the problems of the world our own, argue our leaders. “We are not the world’s policeman, nor its judge and jury,” proclaimed Rep. Alan Grayson, a progressive Florida democrat, reciting standard isolationist jargon for “staying out of it.” 

“Our own needs in America are great, and they come first,” he added. And despite the global turmoil, these isolationist policies of our government are in fact supported by the people. According to a Pew Research Center study published in 2013, 52 percent of those polled felt that “America should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” That number represents the largest majority in the 50 years that the question has been asked. 

Contrary to the low approval ratings of Congress and the president, the foreign policy of our country is actually matching what the public wants—which is the most unsettling part. 

It is a robust argument in political philosophy as to whether a certain government is responsible for not only sustaining the basic rights of its own citizens, but of the citizens of the world. After all, if a certain right—at its most basic level, for example, the right to life—is in fact a human right, how could it only be a human right for people within arbitrary geographical borders? 

If we have the capability to prolong life, or even prevent the loss of life, shouldn’t we be obligated to do so? 

Alternatively, the United States, like any fiscally-based entity, does have a scarcity of resources. How could we possibly be held responsible for the people of the world, which would surely come at an expense? As Grayson said, “our needs come first.”

How selfishly irresponsible. Imagine if the first-year dorms closed their doors to the sophomores without housing, strictly because they weren’t designated to be there. Imagine if Brandeis refused to offer acceptance to international students simply because they weren’t American, because “American students come first.” Imagine if after a natural disaster in a foreign country the rest of the world simply said “not our problem.” 

Why, then, is this an acceptable rationale for foreign policy? Why can we turn away our collective eyes if the area in need of help is labeled “war-zone?”  

One can respond with a utilitarian approach: look at what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan—our help doesn’t help much at all. War is costly, both fiscally and in terms of the lives of our soldiers. But if a car is broken, do we try to fix the car or do we swear off driving altogether? Accepting the realization that force is sometimes necessary is not the problem; people can successfully drive—we just need to figure out how to fight properly. 

At the end of the day the Obama administration accepted the reality that airstrikes in Iraq were necessary—was fear of repeating past mistakes the only reason for the delay in this inevitable decision?

I wonder how many Kurds or Christians would still be in their homes in Iraq if we had decided to airstrike earlier. I wonder how many more Syrian civilians need to be killed before we, as the dominant world power, decide to take real action. 

I wonder how many more people will die as we perpetually run from the mistakes of administrations past. I wonder when we as a country will finally realize that—just like every other community—the world needs a policeman. We have the largest and most advanced military in the world with the power to prevent catastrophe. 

We must accept our responsibility to keep the world in order. We must not hide behind “our own problems.”