America's Moral Responsibility?: The Debate over American Intervention in the Near East after WWI

Abstract

After the First World War, there was widespread support for U.S. intervention in the Near East to assist Christian minorities in the region, but the Wilson administration and the U.S. Senate took little action. The Armenian cause in particular was foremost in the minds of Americans. Many Americans felt the United States had a moral responsibility to help Near Eastern Christians. For many observers, American interest coupled with the opportunity for increased participation in Near Eastern affairs made it seem likely that the United States would emerge from the peace process as a major influence in the Area. However, this was not the case, and proposed initiatives that would increase American participation in the area were either ignored or rejected. There was broad interest in getting more involved in the Near East, but no consensus on how to do so. Some favored an American mandate over Armenia, while others wanted a larger American mandate over Armenia, Constantinople, and Anatolia, and others sought to avoid mandates altogether and instead preferred sending direct aid to Armenia and the Near East. By the time it seemed clear that American intervention in the Near East would only happen along the terms favored by those seeking to limit American costs and responsibility, the solidification of isolationist sentiment in the United States, antagonized by the long League of Nations debate, and changing circumstances in the Near East made a dramatic increase in U.S. influence in the region unlikely. The debate over American intervention in the Near East provides insight into larger discussions about American imperialism and its relationship to humanitarianism, American isolationism in the interwar years, and the partisan atmosphere of American postwar politics.