LET ME offer a brief summary of the left-liberal approach to foreign policy: we should stop Africans dying but Iraqis can go to hell. How else can one explain the hypocrisy that surrounds the now overwhelming calls for intervention in Sudan emanating from the same mouths which so opposed intervention in Iraq?

It is now — rightly — taken as read that, with a humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes in Sudan, we in the West have a moral obligation to do our best to stop it. That means more than just sending food aid. It means military intervention, either to force the Sudanese Government to take action itself or, if need be, to do it ourselves. And if that involves armed conflict, so be it.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who describes himself as being even broadly liberal in outlook who opposes the idea of military action in Sudan. Certainly not Sir Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman. Last month Sir Menzies wrote to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, demanding that he instigate an EU-led military intervention in Darfur. As he put it: “It is becoming increasingly clear that food aid and pressure on the Sudanese Government alone will not be sufficient to stem the impending disaster in Darfur. An EU military force operating under a UN mandate looks like the only answer if we are to prevent a disaster on the scale of Rwanda a decade ago . . . Britain too must also contribute to any such force so far as it can. This has now become a matter of critical urgency.”

Sir Menzies has, for reasons which can be explained only by his articulacy and confident bearing, developed a quite undeserved reputation for wisdom. The fact that on almost every issue, from the euro and the development of the EU to the threat of militant Islam, he is dangerously wrong, seems to have been masked by his impressive countenance. And when, by the law of averages, he is eventually right — Sudan, for instance — he is right only as a result of breathtaking inconsistency.

WHEN criticising the UN Security Council resolution on Sudan last month, he argued that “it seems to me to fall a long way short of what is necessary, . . The timetable involved seems unnecessarily prolonged and one can only imagine the hunger and suffering which will take place in the next 30 days. The truth is there has been too much dithering over Darfur.”

Quite. But if 30 days is too long in Sudan, 12 years (the period during which Saddam ignored UN resolution 687) was not long enough in Sir Menzies’ mind for the Iraqis to suffer. This is the man who, in his determination to oppose intervention in Iraq and thus to ensure that Saddam remained in power, free to butcher his countrymen, argued that no military action should be taken against Saddam. “Let the weapons inspectors take as long as they need,” he wrote before the war. And when we did finally take action, Sir Menzies was at the forefront of the opposition.

Sir Menzies is far from alone in adhering to the warped moral calculus which dictates that action against a vile Sudanese Government is fine but action against a vile Iraqi Government not. The unspoken reason is clear. As ever, it comes down to antipathy towards the US. Action against Iraq was led by the US; that against Sudan will not be. And action is only justified if it is not led by the US.

The revolting truth is that such sentiments are shared by most of the liberal Left, who rank their belief in humanitarian action below their antipathy towards President Bush and, more generally, the United States.

So much for the fabled internationalism of the Left. So much for the idea that human beings are what count. To the anti-war liberal mindset, human misery is less important than hatred of America.

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