Many Americans today are not wholly comfortable with the views of John Stuart Mill. A staunch anti-interventionist, Mill would see great fault with much of the United State's foreign policy regarding un-democratic nations. In his opinion, the billions of dollars that the United States has spent in the effort of installing democratic governments around the world has been fruitless.
In basic term, Mill "claimed that many societies were fit for representative government, but others, in their present state, were not; those peoples truly bent on self-rule, he claimed, would successfully fight for and achieve it" (Slatery, http://www.iop.harvard.edu/utilitarianism-and-neoconservative-conceit). Personally, I believe that this should become the stance of the United States. Attempts to instill democratic feelings in people overseas has been proven to be exhausting mentally, physically, and financially for America. Nothing proves this better than the ongoing "War on Terror." What was supposed to be a brief stint turned into an 11 year long endeavor. Had the Mill influence been infused early on, it is likely that the war could have been cut short especially when it comes to the effort put into democratizing Iran. The toll on America would have been far less great if we had left after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and now President Obama is considering engaging the United States into another potential political escapade. The current Syrian regime has taken an extraordinary amount of well deserved grief for it's use of chemical weapons on its own people. Despite such an atrocity, given the past decade of hardship and misfortune the U.S. has faced overseas, it is hard to believe that President Obama is considering re-igniting the flames of this fading fire. One cannot help but foresee what is to come if the U.S. intervenes. United States retribution will lead to a backlash from the Syrian government, a U.S. sponsored coup, and a new U.S. sponsored government. Somehow Obama seems to have forgotten the fact that doing exactly this in Iran was incredibly difficult. At this point Obama should observe Mill's belief and resist intervening. As proven by the past two years of Syrian civil war, the people of Syria clearly do wish for a democratic government however the only way for them to create a secure government is to establish it themselves. The entire political culture of Syria must change before they can achieve democracy. Iran's political culture was far from democratic when the United States was establishing a government for them, which is what led to riots and fraudulent elections (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_election_protests). After this can the United States even claim Iran's "democratic government" a success? Take a look at the turmoil occurring in Egypt, a country must undergo such drastic change or turmoil in order for a democratic culture to exist. Now Egypt is revolting against the Muslim Brotherhood without any aid from the U.S. This sounds quite similar to the United State's own revolution. Such is the reason that U.S. intervention is useless. Syria must find it's political identity on its own, otherwise there will be backlash and greater conflict.