The Iran problem is looming.
My views on war and foreign policy have evolved quite a bit over the past four years. You could say that I was “for the war in Iraq, before I was against it.” Things change. People grow (one can hope) smarter. More well-informed.
Today, I saw this piece on John Bolton’s public advocacy of a pre-emptive Iranian strike. Then, I read a more in-depth look in The New Yorker about the nuances of the situation in Iraq when it comes to the issues we have with Iran.
I found the latter piece fascinating, and yet, in the interest of due-diligence I needed to know more about its author, Seymour M. Hersh. As it turns out, Mr. Hersh isn’t known for his accuracy, despite a slew of awards on his shelf, including a Pulitzer. (In case the NRO’s opinion doesn’t hold much weight with you, even that bastion of reliable information, Wikipedia, cites Hersh’s questionable credibility.)
Now that we know about the need for a good-sized grain of salt, the issues Hersh raises in the New Yorker piece still bear consideration. What is Iran’s current relationship with Iraqi State Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki? How does the Iraqi government, which is run by a Shiite, relate to the predominantly Shiite regime in Iran? What are the Iranians, who come in to Iraq for various reasons, doing there? When Iranian weapons are found in attacks, what evidence is there that they have been provided by Iran for that purpose and not purchased through Iraq’s lively arms market?
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a fan of Iran. But as Peggy Noonan argues, when referencing the controversy over Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to the U.S., that’s a disclaimer I shouldn’t have to make:
Is it necessary to say when one speaks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that you disapprove of him, disagree with him, believe him a wicked fellow and are not amused that he means to have missiles aimed at us and our friends? If it is, I am happy to say it. Who, really, isn’t?
But this has been our history: to let all speak and to fear no one. That’s a good history to continue. The Council on Foreign Relations was right to invite him to speak last year–that is the council’s job, to hear, listen and parse–and Columbia University was well within its rights to let him speak this year.
The point that I’m trying to make here is that what’s going on in the Middle East right now is maddeningly confusing and incredibly complex. As a conservative, I sometimes feel as though I’m considered a traitor to my country when I question conventional wisdom about the gravity of the threat Iran poses to our nation, and whether we should, in fact, respond with military action.
I understand that there are many allegations of what harm Iran is causing us by proxy. I am concerned, however, about the veracity of the intelligence behind these assertions. I’ve seen very little substantiation. After the intelligence failures that led us to the war in Iraq - a war I’m increasingly convinced violates both just war doctrine and U.S. and international law - I hope I’ll be forgiven for being less gung-ho.
I sat gleefully in front of my computer screen on March 20th, 2003 and watched in real time as “Shock and Awe” fell on Baghdad. We were the good guys and we were obviously superior in might. It was a fireworks show unlike any other I had ever seen.
Now, more than four years later, I’m conflicted. I think we all should be. We need to re-examine just war doctrine. We need to look again at what the founding fathers had in mind for foreign policy. George Washington famously said, “It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”Ron Paul, whom you’ll be hearing more about from me, cited this statement as he made an argument of his own about American foreign policy:
But what policy is best? How should we deal with the rest of the world in a way that best advances proper national interests, while not threatening our freedoms at home?
I believe our founding fathers had it right when they argued for peace and commerce between nations, and against entangling political and military alliances. In other words, noninterventionism.
Noninterventionism is not isolationism. Nonintervention simply means America does not interfere militarily, financially, or covertly in the internal affairs of other nations. It does not mean that we isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.
Thomas Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.” Washington similarly urged that we must, “Act for ourselves and not for others,” by forming an “American character wholly free of foreign attachments.”
Yet how many times have we all heard these wise words without taking them to heart? How many claim to admire Jefferson and Washington, but conveniently ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Since so many apparently now believe Washington and Jefferson were wrong on the critical matter of foreign policy, they should at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
Of course we frequently hear the offensive cliché that, “times have changed,” and thus we cannot follow quaint admonitions from the 1700s. The obvious question, then, is what other principles from our founding era should we discard for convenience? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed and free speech causes too much offense in our modern society? Should we give up the Second amendment, and trust that today’s government is benign and not to be feared by its citizens? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights?
It’s hypocritical and childish to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale is needed to justify interventionist policies today. The principles enshrined in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today’s more complex world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign policy.
The kind of changes this country needs in its various policies are radical. We are so used to operating in a certain way - and this methodology crosses partisan lines - that we’ve almost completely lost all sense of perspective on how different our conduct as a nation is from how it was intended to be.
I’m sincerely concerned that Iran will in fact be attacked by the United States before the end of this administration. I believe that they do not pose a substantial threat to us, because I have as yet seen no evidence to indicate that they do. And yet the posturing continues.
It could be that waning public support for the way this war is being conducted will lean heavily against an Iranian attack. It could be that the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, will bring his concerns over the Iraq war to the forefront as military actions are considered. It could be that some conservatives might even listen when Pat Buchanan calls America an “Infantile Nation” for its hysteria over Ahmadinejad’s visit to the US, and argues that Iran has no good reason to provoke us into an attack:
Hitler could destroy the Jewish population of Europe because he was able to conquer Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. Iran has no air force or navy we could not dispatch in a week and no nukes. Israel has 200 to 300 nuclear warheads and, if it believed its survival was at stake, could turn Tehran into toast in 10 minutes.
Why does Iran want nuclear weapons if it doesn’t want to use them? For the same reason Israel wanted them: deterrence.
After seeing what America did to its non-nuclear neighbor Iraq, which had done nothing to America, and after hearing Bush call them an axis-of-evil nation and prime candidate for U.S. pre-emptive strikes, a not-unreasonable ayatollah might conclude they need nuclear weapons, or the Americans will be dictating to them forever.
America and Iran have great differences, but also common interests. Among the latter, no Taliban in Kabul, no restoration of a Sunni Baathist dictatorship in Baghdad and support for the present governments. Iran cannot want a Sunni-Shia war in the region, which would make her an enemy of most Arabs, and she cannot want a major war with America, which could lead to the destruction and breakup of the nation where only half the people are Persians.
That is plenty to build a cold peace on, if the hysteriacs do not stampede us into another unnecessary war.
Another unnecessary war is exactly what I’m increasingly worried is going to happen.
I hope I’m wrong.
I don’t want a war with Iran either, and I join you in dubiousness about intelligence gathering.
But I have Iran pegged as a greater threat than Pat Buchanan does. The reason is one that Buchanan’s analysis surprisingly omits: Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic Twelver Shiism. He’s making the same mistake that the secularized European elites do in dealing with their restive Muslim populations, namely, disregarding the religious dimension, or redefining it solely in terms of nationalism, poverty, etc.
That Ahmadinejad and many in the Iranian government hold such beliefs makes them more of a threat than, say, the more conventional nationalism of Russia or China.
I’m on my treo on the bus, so I won’t be citing anything directly, but I wanted to get a quick response in.
While it’s not outside the realm of possibility, I don’t think a man as deeply steeped in his traditional Catholicism as Buchanan is (he’s my fellow parishioner) would make the mistake of underestimating the religious dimension of this particular sect of Islam. I think it’s more likely that he discounts their ability to do anything about it. In a recent piece, I believe he referred to the notion that Iran hopes to restore the Caliphate as “blather”.
I don’t know enough about these beliefs to be certain he isn’t understating this. I do wonder, though, just how devoted to this notion they are, considering they haven’t done it after all this time.
IAEA inspectors have said that optimistic estimates pertaining to Iran having usable nuclear material are at least five years out. Their connection to the attacks in Iraq seems confusing, considering the good terms they are on with Maliki. They have an interest in keeping the shiites in power.
But even if they are trying to provoke us to attack them, I think we need to be very careful about helping them to fulfil their prophecy. Aside from the lack of justification for pre-emptive strikes in just war doctrine, we are considering attacking a real Muslim state (unlike Iraq) which will surely result in outrage in the Muslim world and add fuel to the fire of global jihad (and its recruiters’ potency).
Without substantial intelligence indicating an imminent attack of some grave nature, I fail to see how we will find - whatever our fears about Iran’s intentions and motivations - rationalization for an Iranian conflict within our own law or that of the Church.
Let me make it more clear: I think attacking Iran would be a catastrophic error, barring convincing evidence of an imminent threat. There are better ways to neutralize Iran: playing upon ethnic divisions, giving aid and support a la Solidarity to Iranian reformists and so forth.
I also agree that Buchanan’s strong traditional Catholicism should make him sensitive to the religious dimension. But he seems to be making the same mistake the liberals did in the Cold War–discounting an essential motivator in favor of a more comforting “rational” explanation. Just as the liberals tried to downplay the revolutionary impulse driving Communism, Buchanan is avoiding the coal pile in the ballroom, namely Shia apocalypticism. I’d be filling my shorts if the Israelis put a guy in power who wanted to put a new Temple on the Jerusalem Mount. Likewise for Ahmadinejad’s desire to bring the Twelfth Imam out of occultation. He hasn’t exactly hidden his beliefs on this point.
Oh, and Buchanan is right to pooh-pooh any claims that the Iranians want to reestablish the Caliphate. That’s the preoccupation of hardline Sunnis, not the Shia.
Dale,
This is something I’d really like to learn more about. I started reading “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam” this morning when I realized my wife had bought it for me a few months ago and it was sitting on the shelf.
Do you recommend anything else?
Oh, definitely–I’ve been on an Islam-related reading binge of late. Actually, it started with the Abdul Rahman controversy, with all of the “good” Afghan clerics demanding our brother in Christ’s head for his conversion. I realized that I hadn’t begun to study Islam much in the aftermath of 9/11. Time to buckle down. It hasn’t been a cavalcade of whimsy since, that’s for sure.
In no particular order:
(1) You’re off to a good start with Robert Spencer. I also recommend The Truth About Muhammad and Islam Unveiled.
(2) Answering Islam by Geisler and Saleeb. Written by evangelicals, but that doesn’t affect the presentation. The authors avoid the sensational, but still make a strong irenic critique of the religion.
(3) Get a useful copy of the Koran. Translations by Abdullah Yusuf Ali or Muhammad Pickthal are the best. Avoid Ahmadiyya translations–not because they’re poor quality, but because the commentary isn’t mainstream Islam. The Ahmadiyyas are considered grotesque heretics by most Sunnis and Shia. They also happen to be one of the most peaceable sects derived from Islam. Yeah, I know….
(4) The ahadith (hadiths) are essential. They are the sayings and deeds of Muhammad, and they are authoritative gap fillers for the Koran and Islamic practice. For example, the Koran does not clearly say how many prayers a Muslim is supposed to recite in a day, much less when to do them. The hadiths do.
The Summarized Sahih al-Bukhari is the one-volume collection I own, and it is considered the most authoritative and indisputable by Muslims. There is no such thing as Koran-alone Islam (yes, there are tiny sects who allege this, but they have zero influence). From my read, the most disturbing stuff in Islam is not in the Koran, but in the hadiths. USC’s Muslim Student Association has al-Bukhari’s complete collection on line, but it can be confusing to navigate.
(5) Islam, by Caesar Farah. Farah offers a very sympathetic survey of the religion, and his policy theories are…less than. But he gives a substantive overview of the varieties of Islam that alone is worth the price of the book. And he’s way better than Karen Armstrong, who’s a shill for the religion and a consistent detractor of Christianity. Avoid her–at all costs.
(6) Qualified endorsement of Serge Trifkovic’s “Sword of the Prophet.” Far too negative for my tastes, and his footnoting style is European (minimal and tangential). Spencer will spoil you on that score. And Spencer covers much of the same ground better.
But Trifkovic is invaluable in talking about the 20th Century and Islamic extremism in the Balkans in particular.
(7) Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire 1453-1924 by Philip Mansell. OK, a little left field, but it’s a fascinating overview of the capital of the world’s most advanced and powerful Islamic state, the Ottoman Empire. While sympathetic to the Ottomans, Mansell doesn’t whitewash the dark side. If there is any hope for a “neighborly” modern Islam, it will come from Turkey.
Wow. What a daunting list. This is a humbling reminder of how little I know and how much I have to learn.
As an aside, sometimes I wonder if I should get around to reading the whole bible first before I tackle the Koran…
It’s a complex subject and too much of what is being taught is deceptive Oprah platitudes or Tancredoist “nuke ‘em!” nonsense. I’ve been slowly developing my library on the subject, so I’d say “no hurry.”
I’d also throw in Bruce Bawer’s “While Europe Slept.” Bawer’s gay and actually left America because of alleged uptight attitudes about homosexuality, but his experiences in Europe left him horrified by the continent’s appeasement of Islam.
Oh, and definitely read the Bible. I do, every day, and along with other benefits, it helps to emphasize how different the Koran is in organization and approach. I’m not done reading the Koran yet, but even from what I have finished, the differences between it and the OT/NT are striking.
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