PoT’s own John Davenport has a piece in The Defense Post attacking the idea of regime change in Iran. John argues, reasonably enough, that a war with Iran is ill-conceived, partly because it’s based on Israeli deceptions, and partly because it’s likely to lead to terrible, even catastrophic consequences.

I agree with the premises of John’s argument as well as the conclusion, as well as the connection between them. But it seems to me that the more fundamental problem with Israel’s war is also more obvious than anything in John’s argument. The fundamental problem is that the war is a clear, even paradigmatic case of initiatory aggression by Israel, one that flagrantly violates any plausible conception of ad bellum criteria for just war.

The aggression in question is exacerbated by the fact that the problem it purports to solve was created by the US’s unilateral abdication of the JCPOA, and by Israel’s repeated demand that it do so (a demand that prefigured the June 13 attack). In other words, the United States and Israel created the problem to which they now offer a war of aggression and regime change as solution. It’s hard to think of anything more sociopathic than that. Not a surprise when you consider who you’re dealing with.

The strongest case against the war consists in the conjunction of the two arguments, not just the consequence-oriented argument on its own. The fundamental argument is that this is an unjustified war of aggression. The secondary argument is that the war is highly likely to lead to horrific consequences. For a good example of what I’m calling the “fundamental argument,” I recommend an article by Paul Pillar in Responsible Statecraft: “Trump Must Condemn Israeli Acts of Illegal, Naked Aggression.” Though I dislike (and ultimately reject) the legalistic framing involved, Adil Ahmad Haque’s “Indefensible” rightly draws attention to the aggression involved in Israel’s attack on Iran. Unlike Haque, I prefer to put it that way. 

Also useful in assorted ways are Pillar’s “Israel is Luring the US into a Trap,” David Vine’s “Welcome to Iraq 2.0,” Trita Parsi’s “Israel Is Not Winning,” and Branko Marcetic’s “Tulsi Said Iran Not Building Nukes,” all (among many other useful pieces) in Responsible Statecraft. Elsewhere, there’s Marcetic’s “Trump Is Lying His Way Into War,” Jonathan Cook’s “Israel’s Attack on Iran,” David Hearst’s “Trump Is Pushing Tehran to Go Nuclear,” and Chris Hedges’s “Folly of a War with Iran,” along with “War Deja Vu,” and his interview today with Unapologetic.

Between them, these pieces either put the current war in useful historical context, or elaborate on aspects of current context, or else elaborate on aspects of John’s anti-regime-change argument. Put together, I think they provide an essentially airtight argument against the war, and provide a cringe-making catalogue of the fallacies and lies that constitute the case in favor.

Jamkaran Mosque, Qum, Iran (photo credit: Mostafameraji, Wikipedia)

Though written well before the Israeli attack, and not directly about it, my friend Graham Parsons has an excellent piece in The New York Times describing his recent resignation from West Point, where he taught philosophy.

It turned out to be easy to undermine West Point. All it took was an executive order from President Trump and a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dictating what could and couldn’t be taught in the military and its educational institutions.

In a matter of days, the United States Military Academy at West Point abandoned its core principles. Once a school that strove to give cadets the broad-based, critical-minded, nonpartisan education they need for careers as Army officers, it was suddenly eliminating courses, modifying syllabuses and censoring arguments to comport with the ideological tastes of the Trump administration.

I will be resigning after this semester from my tenured position at West Point after 13 years on the faculty. I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.

Graham’s (forced) departure is West Point’s loss. It’s also painful testimony to the total loss of moral bearings within the US military establishment, and a case study on what has to be done to maintain one’s integrity among such soulless creatures. The moral and intellectual rot that Graham describes foreshadows the militarism to come, and it should surprise no one that it has its source in the Ivy League. Pete Hegseth is, after all, a graduate of that woke institution, Princeton University. As someone who went through a similar experience at a similarly corrupt institution, all I can say is: I’ve been there, Graham. As I’m sure you know, you’re better off wherever you currently are. 

Finally, my friend Suzanne Schneider, tired of receiving pro-war messages from Jewish communal leaders, crafts an alternative letter “never sent” that now in some sense has been sent, and ought to be acknowledged and received by its addressees. Actually, her words deserve reflection whether the reader is Jewish or not:

I know you are tired of this war, fearful of its blowback attacks on American Jews, and concerned about the safety of our people the world over. I know you are sickened to see the actions of the so-called Jewish state, so at odds with actual Jewish values and moral commitments to the sanctity of human life. Israel has been pursuing a losing strategy for decades, one that makes all of us less safe in the end. Real courage in this moment requires that we put away the rubber stamp and say no.

Suzanne is more charitable to these leaders than they deserve. I don’t know how “tired” they are of war or how “sickened” by the actions of Israel. Plenty of them seem eager for more, or at least resigned to it, reproducing with respect to Iran the attitudes they’ve had for decades about Israel’s occupation, its system of apartheid, and every Israeli war and atrocity that preceded the most recent round of violence. That said, it’s a relief to read a piece that affirms the value of saying no. Freedom, as Sartre taught us, begins in negation. It’s a paradoxical implication of Sartre’s view that sometimes, nothing beats something. This is one of them.