The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine emerged during the early 2000’s, in response to the massive civilian death tolls from the Rwandan genocide and massacres such as Srebrenica that occurred during the Balkan wars. R2P doctrine dictates that not only does the state have the responsibility to protect it’s population, but that the international community has the responsibility to prevent the outbreak of violent internal conflict, the responsibility to react to the outbreak of any violent conflict in a timely manner (“reaction” can include the use of sanctions, international law, or military intervention), and the responsibility to assist in rebuilding following any violent conflict. However, since the doctrine’s introduction in the early 2000’s and its overall international acceptance in 2005, the patchy implementation on a case-by-case basis, has tarnished its name and character. This patchy implementation, coupled with an overstretch of the intentions and applicability of the doctrine to include, according to some academics, a “Responsibility to Prevent” (Feinstein & Slaughter, 2004) and a “Responsibility to Counter Terrorism” (Etzioni, 2013) has left the doctrine at loose ends and many pondering the future applicability and usefulness of this mechanism. By exploring the most recent applications, and non-applications, of R2P doctrine in the Middle Eastern and North African region, this paper addresses to what extent, if at all, the R2P doctrine (and it’s offshoots) have a humanitarian-oriented role in directing policy and involvement in the region. The alternative proposal addressed in this paper is that the R2P doctrine, as it has become more widely accepted within the international community, has become a tool for individual states to augment and boost their various national security policy’s, rather than to pursue an humanitarian-oriented intervention strategy. Throughout this paper three recent and ongoing conflicts in the Middle Eastern and North African region will be addressed. The use and publicization of the R2P doctrine in relation to international intervention in these three conflicts will be discussed, and lead to a conclusion regarding the efficacy of the R2P doctrine in guiding future “humanitarian interventions.” The three conflicts to be analyzed include: the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya, the 2013 French-led intervention in Mali, and the lack of military intervention in Syria since the uprising began in early 2011 and the country descended into civil war.