The humanitarian agenda and the pursuit of national interests are not necessarily inimical. As Andrew Natsios, now director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has pointed out in the past, international aid can be an important tool in the promotion of American interests. However, if the goal of humanitarian programs-whether in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Kim Jong-Il's North Korea-is to alleviate human suffering, then surely these undertakings ought not shore up, much less strengthen, the very regimes that not only created the crises but which regularly oppose U.S. policy. The only way to ensure this is not the result would be if the aid itself, as well as its administration, is subject to same political deliberation that all matters of state must face in a liberal democracy. Exempting "humanitarian" aid from scrutiny by declaring it a priori  evades this crucial scrutiny without which the humane impulse originally behind "Oil-for-Food" might unwittingly condemn itself to being "Fuel-for-Tyrants," or worse.

Dr. J. Peter Pham, a former diplomat, is author, most recently, of Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press).