About 100 people filled a Dunedin lecture theatre yesterday to listen to academics debate moral issues arising from the Syrian civil war.
National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies director Prof Kevin Clements said he hoped the public forum at the University of Otago on the Syrian crisis would be the first of many across New Zealand.
As a result of the war, more than 100,000 Syrians had been killed and more than 1.8 million were refugees, he said.
New Zealanders needed to weigh up the available evidence and decide if New Zealand should provide moral support to a United States military intervention.
''The question is - in this last stage in the narrative - how do we prevent further suffering of the Syrian people, how might we deal with the casualties of the conflict and how can we do good in this part of the world without inflicting more harm?''
University of Otago department of politics professor Bill Harris said if the United States failed to intervene, the war would be prolonged and more Syrians would die.
National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies deputy director Prof Richard Jackson said Western military intervention might not deter Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from further attacks on civilians.
''It may make al-Assad ... more willing to use extreme weapons ... push him into a corner.''
An intervention could make the rebels wanting a regime change less willing to negotiate.
The conflict was ''too complex'' and the participants ''too bad'' to engage in a ''conflict resolution process''.
A straw poll of the audience at the conclusion of the forum showed most opposed New Zealand supporting a military intervention.
