We’re Going to Need a Bigger Movement

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

The US-Israeli war on Iran is two weeks old, and getting worse every day. So far, the anti-war movement’s response has been salutary, but muted. A lot of astute commentators deserve credit for saying a lot of the right things, but as far as visible public outcry is concerned, we’ve fallen short. 

I split my time between Princeton and West Orange, New Jersey. We had a smallish anti-war rally in Princeton on the first day of the war, sponsored by the local Coalition for Peace Action and Indivisible; 180 people showed up in Hinds Plaza, and we got some modest but positive local news coverage across the following week. There was a small follow-up rally a few days later at Princeton’s War Memorial, and then some canvassing with Adam Hamaway, a local anti-war candidate for Congress. A vigil and a demonstration are scheduled for next week at the University, organized by some of the student groups there. A respectable but hardly overwhelming display. Continue reading →

First World Problems

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, slices of life, War with Iran

I’m in a car, late as usual but on my way to work. The driver has 94.5 WPST-FM on, and the “morning crew” is inviting call-in comments on their deep discussion topic du jour: how long should you wait to complain at a restaurant before you regard your “server” as late in bringing your order? “Fifteen minutes.” “Twenty minutes.” One guy says he avoids the problem by telling everyone he’s in a hurry, whether or not he is. Ha ha! Funny! Happy Friday, everyone!

Continue reading →

Defeat Will Do

Posted on by under Ukraine, War with Iran

Twelve days into the war with Iran, The New York Times is gradually coming to acknowledge that the war has not been a one-way affair. For twelve days, the Times has covered the war as though the US and Israel have had free rein to attack Iran, but as though Iran itself had been a passive recipient of the shock and awe campaign inflicted on it. Now all of a sudden, we get four major articles within 24 hours telling us otherwise:

Better late than never, but still pretty late to be telling your audience that the other side had not only managed to retaliate over the last two weeks, but had inflicted a fair bit of unexpected damage, and promises more. Continue reading →

Institutional Neutrality and Legislative Oversight

Posted on by under activism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Suppose that I’m a university president at an institution that’s endorsed institutional neutrality. I’m now invited by the chair of an oversight committee in Congress or the state legislature to testify before the committee on matters that fall within the committee’s higher education oversight functions. Stipulate that the discussion of these matters can’t avoid touching on matters of public controversy, and that I won’t be permitted during the oversight hearing to pick and choose what questions I’ll answer or in what form. Those issues are exclusively within the purview of the committee chair. What should I do?  Continue reading →

Target Practice

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

If you’ve been following the news about the Iranian girls’ school that was hit by an American missile, you may have noticed that the very news stories that indict the US quietly provide a bit of exoneration for the US as well. The school, we’re told, was right next to a military installation. Clearly (the story goes), the installation was the intended target of the strike. If so, perhaps there is a story to be told about how the US was trying to hit the military installation but accidentally hit the school (twice). Which doesn’t make it so bad. It was an accident! Not our fault! Why would the Revolutionary Guards put a military installation next to a school? How can we be blamed for killing a bunch of schoolgirls if they do? You can see the position of the school relative to the base in this screen shot below from The New York Times. Continue reading →

Anatole Lieven on “The Woke Left”

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, War with Iran

Consider a lapse (or two) into senselessness in a generally sensible piece by a generally sensible author, Anatole Lieven. The thesis:

By their shameful, spineless stance on the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, European leaders have doomed whatever remained of their global influence and their pretensions to promote a “rules-based international order.”

They are also helping to dig the graves of their own political parties, and quite possibly of European democracy.

Fair enough. Now for the first lapse: Continue reading →

Malley and Wertheim on Iranian “Responsibility”

Posted on by under Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

When people commit crimes, they often invent elaborate rationalizations to conceal or dilute the moral turpitude of the offense. Rapists notoriously claim that their victims asked to be raped, or enjoyed it during the act. Murderers cite the imperatives of retributive justice. Etc. When it comes to ordinary crimes, most people can see the gaslighting involved for the deception it is. Unfortunately, this tends not to be true of crimes by nation-states. A nation-state can commit an obvious, egregious crime in the plain light of day, lie about it in an obvious way, and be believed by millions of people. Continue reading →

“The Iran War Is Unfathomably Depraved”

Posted on by under activism, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, War with Iran

Notes on War and Complicity
There are many valuable criticisms and critiques of the Iran War out there, and at some point I hope to mention as many of them here as I can, but if you want one-stop shopping, the thing to read is Nathan Robinson’s “The Iran War Is Unfathomably Depraved” in the March 2026 issue of Current Affairs. I agree with literally everything in Robinson’s article except this one sentence:

We are all complicit.

No, we’re not. Continue reading →