An excellent reflection, Kaiser. The fundamental problem with the arguments for intervention in Iran is the assumption of manifold superiority and the implicit lack of respect for Iranians. But superiority and disrespect lie at the core of American policy toward Iran; the urge to intervene is only the latest symptom. Just as we are strangling Cubans for their own good, without pretext other than their being in “our” hemisphere, we have been strangling Iran with sanctions. We stereotype the leaders as enemies not worthy of serious negotiations and constrict the life chances of the people in order to punish their government. While suffering can contribute to uprisings, foreign pressure also de-legitimizes opposition and justifies patriotic repression. Crises attract our attention, but we do not appreciate the harm done by our standing policies of punishing populations and shunning their governments.
Your analysis leaves out the most probable type of intervention - not kinetic but regime alteration (as Niall Ferguson calls it) i.e. similar to Venezuela - get rid of the rascals by bringing in the thugs.
And it ignores the decision calculus in Washington these days which have little to do with strategic aims or moral compunctions - foreign interventions as spectacle, as a distraction from the challenges within.
This is where I land on things too. I would add that Kaiser's point about feasibility (We’re willing to contemplate intervention in Iran because we think we can get away with it.) is right up there with the administration's goals of spectacle and distraction. We are led by a man who wants all the prizes without any of the work needed to achieve them.
For the first time I have found hard to read you. The reflection is deep and the analysis is thorough, as usual. However, some key premises are entirely questionable.
Figures of the repression vary wildly, and it is telling which sources push for exceedingly high figures (mutatis mutandis, the same that would count the victims of Communism in tens of millions or depict the relatively brief crackdown on Uyghur terrorism as a genocide).
Similarly, who talks of "unarmed protesters", just templates a familiar narrative (Tienanmen, Maidan) despite early hour video evidence of the opposite.
That makes hard to follow with an open mind your otherwise thorough analysis of the ins and outs of what appears to be a complex dilemma. How much of the depth of such dilemma is manufactured, possibly just to have us opening up to consider or even accept its military, illegal (if we still care to bother about International Law) solution?
Your level of articulation is a pleasure to read. All great points throughout. I think you land on the right conclusion as well, with your point about the agency of the Iranian people.
But, in my limited experience, it is hard to watch someone struggle and not be able to do much to help, other than encourage from the sidelines.
Other commenters also make some very valid points, IMO, also quite well articulated (how very civilised).
Self determination, even national self determination, by definition, must emanate from within. You can lead a horse to water... etc.
Also, viewed from a completely different angle, paternalism causes resentment if the child doesn't grow up and become independent. The same kind of resentment surely emanates from the ruling classes when they must carry the so-called great unwashed, proles, or whatever other term is applied to the least gifted, the sick, the morally uncouth of the lower third of the bell curve of "human potential" distribution. This dynamic of saviour-ism seems to derail all the "noble intentions" when they are earnest, let alone when morality is merely a veil covering a venal and greedy ruling class of oligarchs and politicians, as the whole Epstein situation is currently revealing.
Deleuze had a great quote, to paraphrase: When you find yourself stuck in the dream of another, we have a good word for this, nightmare.
If you are against what Isreal is doing in Gaza, you are against what the US has been doing to Iran to varying degrees of intensity for the last four decades (and Iraq, and Lebanon, and Syria).
As you regularly have to put up with propaganda and narratives against China that have no interest for the well being of its people and only aim to promote domination (do you remember that Hudson report last year that gamed the intervention into China, the one that puzzled over how to re-educate the large population?), I hope you can appreciate the similar patience that is required here, because the middle east area has long needed the full and aware engagement of the worlds academics, not only their knee-jerk sympathy (not a bad thing in itself) when they see blood on the streets: that is not the time to start learning about what is going on, and only makes things worse (as like in Haiti in the run up to 2004, the outrage of the learned international class only served as a base of support for Aristide to eventually be kidnapped.)
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, all these countries desperately need everyone's help, and that starts with detangling decades of imperial narratives, and being honest with ourselves that we constantly fall into the lazy trap of letting aggressive hegemons dictate the discourse, and manipulate our emotions.
"If our commitment to supporting protesters is calibrated entirely by military vulnerability rather than by whether intervention would actually help, then we’re not operating from principle — we’re opportunistic. And that opportunism corrodes the very international norms and moral authority we claim to be defending."
The USA has always been opportunistic. I would think at this point the majority of people see that the supposed principles were always a sham. If they had existed in a meaningful way the USA would be sanctioning Israel for the ultimate crime of genocide rather than ICC judges and human rights lawyers.
I'm frankly suprised anyone is still entertaining the idea that the moral authority of the west can be corroded, it never existed to begin with.
One refrain I have heard is "how can you not support intervention in, really, anywhere, if you are in favor of more aggressive Ukraine policy?"
The response I have might under your analysis be seen as based around feasibility or opportunism, and I think those are actually useful things, but ultimately it is about the legibility of the Ukrainian effort, the type of support we can offer that's compatible with that. It needs to be interlinked with what respect we have for the fact that Ukraine has a capable army- maybe now the most capable in Europe in some regards- and where we see the country in the next decade.
All of this was unclear in 2014 during the Crimea annexation, and subsequent events have made it more clear. However, America itself has expressed far less respect for Ukraine, which changes things for the worse.
Thank you for this reflection, Kaiser. I do not follow these issues closely, but I do find that many arguments fully for or against them are often too Manichaean. To add a different China angle than the one offered in the piece, I find much of the commentary on Taiwan to be this way as well. I found your podcast with Daniel Bessner to fall into this pattern. I am not sure what conclusions I would ultimately come to on Taiwan; I imagine many contingencies would be at play, and I even suspect I would arrive at conclusions similar to Daniel’s. Still, his failing to discuss those contingencies suggests a certain shallowness that I am not comfortable with and do not think is productive.
What is your evidence for a massive crack down by Iranian authorities compared to the alternative proposition that most of the deaths were caused by Mossad, CIA and MI6 sponsored mercenaries. The evidence for which is that calm returned to Iran when Iran blocked the Starlink command channel to the mercenaries.
An excellent reflection, Kaiser. The fundamental problem with the arguments for intervention in Iran is the assumption of manifold superiority and the implicit lack of respect for Iranians. But superiority and disrespect lie at the core of American policy toward Iran; the urge to intervene is only the latest symptom. Just as we are strangling Cubans for their own good, without pretext other than their being in “our” hemisphere, we have been strangling Iran with sanctions. We stereotype the leaders as enemies not worthy of serious negotiations and constrict the life chances of the people in order to punish their government. While suffering can contribute to uprisings, foreign pressure also de-legitimizes opposition and justifies patriotic repression. Crises attract our attention, but we do not appreciate the harm done by our standing policies of punishing populations and shunning their governments.
Your analysis leaves out the most probable type of intervention - not kinetic but regime alteration (as Niall Ferguson calls it) i.e. similar to Venezuela - get rid of the rascals by bringing in the thugs.
And it ignores the decision calculus in Washington these days which have little to do with strategic aims or moral compunctions - foreign interventions as spectacle, as a distraction from the challenges within.
This is where I land on things too. I would add that Kaiser's point about feasibility (We’re willing to contemplate intervention in Iran because we think we can get away with it.) is right up there with the administration's goals of spectacle and distraction. We are led by a man who wants all the prizes without any of the work needed to achieve them.
For the first time I have found hard to read you. The reflection is deep and the analysis is thorough, as usual. However, some key premises are entirely questionable.
Figures of the repression vary wildly, and it is telling which sources push for exceedingly high figures (mutatis mutandis, the same that would count the victims of Communism in tens of millions or depict the relatively brief crackdown on Uyghur terrorism as a genocide).
Similarly, who talks of "unarmed protesters", just templates a familiar narrative (Tienanmen, Maidan) despite early hour video evidence of the opposite.
That makes hard to follow with an open mind your otherwise thorough analysis of the ins and outs of what appears to be a complex dilemma. How much of the depth of such dilemma is manufactured, possibly just to have us opening up to consider or even accept its military, illegal (if we still care to bother about International Law) solution?
All fair criticisms! I share much of your skepticism about the scale of reported killings.
Your level of articulation is a pleasure to read. All great points throughout. I think you land on the right conclusion as well, with your point about the agency of the Iranian people.
But, in my limited experience, it is hard to watch someone struggle and not be able to do much to help, other than encourage from the sidelines.
Other commenters also make some very valid points, IMO, also quite well articulated (how very civilised).
Self determination, even national self determination, by definition, must emanate from within. You can lead a horse to water... etc.
Also, viewed from a completely different angle, paternalism causes resentment if the child doesn't grow up and become independent. The same kind of resentment surely emanates from the ruling classes when they must carry the so-called great unwashed, proles, or whatever other term is applied to the least gifted, the sick, the morally uncouth of the lower third of the bell curve of "human potential" distribution. This dynamic of saviour-ism seems to derail all the "noble intentions" when they are earnest, let alone when morality is merely a veil covering a venal and greedy ruling class of oligarchs and politicians, as the whole Epstein situation is currently revealing.
Deleuze had a great quote, to paraphrase: When you find yourself stuck in the dream of another, we have a good word for this, nightmare.
If you are against what Isreal is doing in Gaza, you are against what the US has been doing to Iran to varying degrees of intensity for the last four decades (and Iraq, and Lebanon, and Syria).
As you regularly have to put up with propaganda and narratives against China that have no interest for the well being of its people and only aim to promote domination (do you remember that Hudson report last year that gamed the intervention into China, the one that puzzled over how to re-educate the large population?), I hope you can appreciate the similar patience that is required here, because the middle east area has long needed the full and aware engagement of the worlds academics, not only their knee-jerk sympathy (not a bad thing in itself) when they see blood on the streets: that is not the time to start learning about what is going on, and only makes things worse (as like in Haiti in the run up to 2004, the outrage of the learned international class only served as a base of support for Aristide to eventually be kidnapped.)
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, all these countries desperately need everyone's help, and that starts with detangling decades of imperial narratives, and being honest with ourselves that we constantly fall into the lazy trap of letting aggressive hegemons dictate the discourse, and manipulate our emotions.
"If our commitment to supporting protesters is calibrated entirely by military vulnerability rather than by whether intervention would actually help, then we’re not operating from principle — we’re opportunistic. And that opportunism corrodes the very international norms and moral authority we claim to be defending."
The USA has always been opportunistic. I would think at this point the majority of people see that the supposed principles were always a sham. If they had existed in a meaningful way the USA would be sanctioning Israel for the ultimate crime of genocide rather than ICC judges and human rights lawyers.
I'm frankly suprised anyone is still entertaining the idea that the moral authority of the west can be corroded, it never existed to begin with.
One refrain I have heard is "how can you not support intervention in, really, anywhere, if you are in favor of more aggressive Ukraine policy?"
The response I have might under your analysis be seen as based around feasibility or opportunism, and I think those are actually useful things, but ultimately it is about the legibility of the Ukrainian effort, the type of support we can offer that's compatible with that. It needs to be interlinked with what respect we have for the fact that Ukraine has a capable army- maybe now the most capable in Europe in some regards- and where we see the country in the next decade.
All of this was unclear in 2014 during the Crimea annexation, and subsequent events have made it more clear. However, America itself has expressed far less respect for Ukraine, which changes things for the worse.
Thank you for this reflection, Kaiser. I do not follow these issues closely, but I do find that many arguments fully for or against them are often too Manichaean. To add a different China angle than the one offered in the piece, I find much of the commentary on Taiwan to be this way as well. I found your podcast with Daniel Bessner to fall into this pattern. I am not sure what conclusions I would ultimately come to on Taiwan; I imagine many contingencies would be at play, and I even suspect I would arrive at conclusions similar to Daniel’s. Still, his failing to discuss those contingencies suggests a certain shallowness that I am not comfortable with and do not think is productive.
What is your evidence for a massive crack down by Iranian authorities compared to the alternative proposition that most of the deaths were caused by Mossad, CIA and MI6 sponsored mercenaries. The evidence for which is that calm returned to Iran when Iran blocked the Starlink command channel to the mercenaries.