Non-intervention fails if rival powers still intervene in the region

Evidence

But, of course, the great dilemma of such a policy of “masterly inactivity” is how to leave the Middle East alone and at the same time insure that others also will leave it alone. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1199

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the classic restraint dilemma — worth chasing how modern US policy attempted and failed to reconcile it.
• XREF: connects to: Non-interventionist governments were forced into greater intervention — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 1030; Nonviolent-tactics doctrine failed in Ukraine because its prerequisites were absent — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 501