The conventional wisdom has it that “for now,” the war with Iran is over. According to this supposed wisdom, Iran followed up our assassination of Suleimani with a lot of rhetorical bluster but an oddly anti-climactic and hapless missile strike on US bases in Iraq. The strike caused no casualties, and did no “serious” damage. Meanwhile, Trump, in his magnanimity, seems not to want to “escalate.” And so, war has been averted, and we can all emit a collective sigh of relief over everything’s having ended so well. I don’t claim to be an expert on military affairs, but to state my verdict on the conventional wisdom in a word: bullshit. The war isn’t over. It’s just begun. Continue reading
Category Archives: War with Iran
War with Iran (6): Geraldine Brooks on Iran Air Flight 655
This Op-Ed is a worthy antidote to the hubris, amnesia, hypocrisy, and brutality being offered up to rationalize war on Iran. Kudos to Geraldine Brooks for having written it, and to The New York Times for publishing it. To quote Motörhead:
Blood on all our hands, we cannot hope to wash them clean
History is mystery; do you know what it means?
Well, you do now.
War with Iran (4): The Target Package
Donald Trump has famously and idiotically tried to assuage fears of a war with Iran with the assertion that he had Qasem Suleimani killed not to start a war but to prevent one. Putting aside the ad hoc quality of his reliance on the distinction between the intended and the foreseen, this happens to be a classic case of its total irrelevance: it doesn’t much matter in this context whether Trump intended to start a war, or merely foresaw that he might start one, or just recklessly took his action without thinking too hard about what he was doing. Yes, there’s a distinction to be drawn between a war brought about by intention and a war brought about through extreme recklessness. But it’s a distinction without a difference in a case where the action leading to war initiates force and violates any plausible conception of prudential rationality to boot. It doesn’t help that the rationalization for it comes from a pathological liar. Continue reading
War with Iran (3): Antiwar Activism with Student-Soldiers
An excellent (and for me, live) question on Facebook care of Mark LeVine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at UC Irvine:
So, fellow academics — The new quarter/semester starts, you get an active duty or reserve service member in your class who might be deployed because of this nightmare Trump is so gleefully creating for us. Do you reach out to her/him and advise/urge/suggest that s/he refuse to deploy for anything related to a war with Iran, explaining that such a war would be a crime against humanity? Or do you wait for them to come to you if they so choose?
War with Iran (2): Moral Blackmail and Salvation by Faith
The moral blackmail regarding Iran has begun, and often enough, it sounds like this:
If you had certain intelligence of an imminent threat on American lives, would you or would you not use military force to stop the person responsible for it?
If you say that you wouldn’t, you sound like a callous traitor, willing to sacrifice American lives to the Iranian regime. If you say you would (or even “I would under these circumstances”), you’re effectively ratifying the Trump Administration’s decision to kill Qasem Suleimani, and by implication ratifying-in-advance whatever decision it ends up making about war. And that’s the whole game. Continue reading
War with Iran? (1)
Well, major escalation at any rate. The New York Times tries to walk it back in a pro forma attempt to identify the aggressor. They get an “A” for effort, but “How did the confrontation escalate?” is not an answer to “Who initiated the aggression?”or “Who, if anyone, is the aggressor?” I discussed that issue here a few months ago. It’s come up here as well. (And here: Vicente Medina’s response to me.) I’m inclined to think that we’re the aggressor.
Sing It Again, Y’all: Bret Stephens’s War With Iran
From a Bret Stephens column on the “Gulf of Oman” crisis:
Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn’t. There are lingering questions about the types of munitions that hit the ships, and time should be given for a thorough investigation. But it would require a large dose of self-deception (or conspiracy theorizing) to pretend that Iran isn’t the likely culprit, or that its actions don’t represent a major escalation in the region.
How many fallacies do you see there? I was at first tempted to count two.
The first is a begged question: the U.S. military’s version of the event is true because the U.S. military doesn’t lie.
The second is either a poisoned well or two of them: if you don’t believe the U.S. military’s version of the story, you are (1) self-deceived or (2) engaged in conspiracy theorizing. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 