Preemptive Advice
UPDATE: Wiser and Williams directed us to Senator Kerry's speech on faith and policy at Pepperdine. Suspend your prejudice and read it. He speaks truth.
Also, I buried this link in the body of the article, but please pay special attention to VU's excerpts of Tom Fox's blog from Iraq.
Last week, Iran’s Prime Minister, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, paid a call on Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. Both men take great umbrage with the U.S. and our current government. Chavez calls Castro his brother, and now Ahmadinejad is in the fraternity, too. Chavez is calling his southern neighbors together into a new version of an old theme, pan-South American social solidarity, and with leftists making good headway in many southwestern nations, he may be onto something. Chavez and Ahmadinejad are revolutionaries with a common enemy, and the Iranian and the Venezuelan are making smart plays in their neighborhoods to invest capital to build influence and to consolidate the collective power of allies. Saddam Hussein had no friends, but the U.S. may be in the midst of a triangulation, a flanking maneuver among ambitious socialists from the developing world, all with luscious oil reserves. Our government has not yet suggested that we might go to war with Venezuela, but “all options are on the table” for Iran.
In Time, a “senior administration official” says that the state department wants “to prevent a situation in which the president finds himself having to decide between a nuclear-armed Iran or going to war.” The administration says that it is determined to seek a diplomatic solution, but we must wonder whether this President’s government can negotiate with Iran or Venezuela or Syria or Israel or North Korea in a post-Iraq world. The prime problem with this administration is its propensity to think in terms of two options. Either you are with us or against us. Either tow the line or appease the enemy. Nations are good or evil. Give up your rights and keep the complaints down, or you will die at the hands of a suicide bomber. Evil dictators are evil. We are good. We do not do deals with evil dictators. Decide between a nuclear-armed Iran or go to war.
These are false choices. Two great flaws plague this administration, a lack of humility and a lack of creativity. For Christians, these qualities are inherent to our faith, our tradition and the teachings of our Lord. With out humility and without creativity, complexity distills to naiveté, at best, and reckless, at worst. Our President claims Christ but has not demonstrated these Christian attributes very well.
As we stare down new crises by the day, many of our own making, let us Christians implore our government to heed some prophecy: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Blessed are the peacemakers and the meek. Love your neighbor as yourself.
I am not a pacifist but a just-war pragmatist, yet we must be driven by the Spirit of Christ Who desires peace. We have some choices to make which will affect the live of millions of innocents. War is no abstraction, however far from home. We need not abandon our security, our prosperity or our sovereignty to avoid war. We must be more creative, and we must be humble. Jesus disarmed his religious rivals with truth and goodness that they did not expect. He did not walk brashly into their traps and retaliate when they attacked him. Instead, Jesus surprised their preconceptions. This is good foreign policy strategy for this mighty nation.
Mercy. Let us extend our wealth to relieve the suffering of the poorest masses of humanity. Let us engender good will and influence by our compassion, not our might. Moreover, let us do no more harm than we have done to millions of people in poverty and fear as a result of our preemptive wars. We need not bomb Iran to keep it from getting the Bomb anymore than we needed to level Fallujah to contain Saddam Hussein. Mamas die. Daddies die. Babies die. Little girls run from soldiers and car bombs to learn to read. We have the power to build, not only to destroy, and the use of our power and wealth turns simply on the motives we chose to suffer. We have not shown mercy in Iraq.
Humility. Let us receive insight from others closer to our perceived enemies. Let us at least consider their grievances and shape. Let us admit that we may not be the only righteous people, if any are to be found here at all. Let us take moral counsel from weaker nations. Let us not forget that we once were weak too. Let us not think that we are immune from blood or judgment. Let us remember the Kings of Divine Right who lost their heads to an oppressed underclass. The people still may rise; history continues.
Love. Let us not be the first to strike, even if the threat is imminent. Let us never preempt so that we never surrender the high ground. Let us weigh the value of life and families, even our enemies’, or our enemies’ neighbors, more than we value our own wealth and affluence. Our national interests should be morality, compassion, charity and defense of the defenseless. Torture cannot be loving, and the absence of love is evil.
Creativity. Let us act to forge a better world built in progress, education, investment and wisdom, not in war. We can craft solutions that protect our own ends while contemplating our opponents’ interests. Only rarely must we go to war. Negotiation is not weakness. Negotiation is reconciliation. Negotiation takes maturity. Negotiation is peacemaking. Negotiation preempts death. Talk to Iran. Talk to Syria. Talk to Castro. Talk to Venezuela. Talk to North Korea. Engagement yields insight and information, and knowledge informs negotiation. Negotiation is not weak. Negotiation is smart.
Be certain; in international politics, never are two options the only way. Never. The President doesn’t have two options, good or evil; he has a thousand and one options, along the spectra, from evil to good, from unworkable to effective, from smart to stupid, from unilateral to consensus, from military to economic to political, to personal to spiritual. Nuance does not imply weakness. Nuance and subtlety demonstrate a realistic grasp of grown up problems.
May I now go on the record as new opponents gather on our shores and plot our demise, while dangers multiply and enemies call their guerillas to arms. Now is the season for wisdom, creativity, love, humility and courage. We should not wage war on any of these enemies, because victory does not require war. War imposes too great a cost on our own souls and the lives of those we would shatter. If we go to war against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela or Syria, we will have failed.
Also, I buried this link in the body of the article, but please pay special attention to VU's excerpts of Tom Fox's blog from Iraq.
Last week, Iran’s Prime Minister, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, paid a call on Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela. Both men take great umbrage with the U.S. and our current government. Chavez calls Castro his brother, and now Ahmadinejad is in the fraternity, too. Chavez is calling his southern neighbors together into a new version of an old theme, pan-South American social solidarity, and with leftists making good headway in many southwestern nations, he may be onto something. Chavez and Ahmadinejad are revolutionaries with a common enemy, and the Iranian and the Venezuelan are making smart plays in their neighborhoods to invest capital to build influence and to consolidate the collective power of allies. Saddam Hussein had no friends, but the U.S. may be in the midst of a triangulation, a flanking maneuver among ambitious socialists from the developing world, all with luscious oil reserves. Our government has not yet suggested that we might go to war with Venezuela, but “all options are on the table” for Iran.
In Time, a “senior administration official” says that the state department wants “to prevent a situation in which the president finds himself having to decide between a nuclear-armed Iran or going to war.” The administration says that it is determined to seek a diplomatic solution, but we must wonder whether this President’s government can negotiate with Iran or Venezuela or Syria or Israel or North Korea in a post-Iraq world. The prime problem with this administration is its propensity to think in terms of two options. Either you are with us or against us. Either tow the line or appease the enemy. Nations are good or evil. Give up your rights and keep the complaints down, or you will die at the hands of a suicide bomber. Evil dictators are evil. We are good. We do not do deals with evil dictators. Decide between a nuclear-armed Iran or go to war.
These are false choices. Two great flaws plague this administration, a lack of humility and a lack of creativity. For Christians, these qualities are inherent to our faith, our tradition and the teachings of our Lord. With out humility and without creativity, complexity distills to naiveté, at best, and reckless, at worst. Our President claims Christ but has not demonstrated these Christian attributes very well.
As we stare down new crises by the day, many of our own making, let us Christians implore our government to heed some prophecy: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Blessed are the peacemakers and the meek. Love your neighbor as yourself.
I am not a pacifist but a just-war pragmatist, yet we must be driven by the Spirit of Christ Who desires peace. We have some choices to make which will affect the live of millions of innocents. War is no abstraction, however far from home. We need not abandon our security, our prosperity or our sovereignty to avoid war. We must be more creative, and we must be humble. Jesus disarmed his religious rivals with truth and goodness that they did not expect. He did not walk brashly into their traps and retaliate when they attacked him. Instead, Jesus surprised their preconceptions. This is good foreign policy strategy for this mighty nation.
Mercy. Let us extend our wealth to relieve the suffering of the poorest masses of humanity. Let us engender good will and influence by our compassion, not our might. Moreover, let us do no more harm than we have done to millions of people in poverty and fear as a result of our preemptive wars. We need not bomb Iran to keep it from getting the Bomb anymore than we needed to level Fallujah to contain Saddam Hussein. Mamas die. Daddies die. Babies die. Little girls run from soldiers and car bombs to learn to read. We have the power to build, not only to destroy, and the use of our power and wealth turns simply on the motives we chose to suffer. We have not shown mercy in Iraq.
Humility. Let us receive insight from others closer to our perceived enemies. Let us at least consider their grievances and shape. Let us admit that we may not be the only righteous people, if any are to be found here at all. Let us take moral counsel from weaker nations. Let us not forget that we once were weak too. Let us not think that we are immune from blood or judgment. Let us remember the Kings of Divine Right who lost their heads to an oppressed underclass. The people still may rise; history continues.
Love. Let us not be the first to strike, even if the threat is imminent. Let us never preempt so that we never surrender the high ground. Let us weigh the value of life and families, even our enemies’, or our enemies’ neighbors, more than we value our own wealth and affluence. Our national interests should be morality, compassion, charity and defense of the defenseless. Torture cannot be loving, and the absence of love is evil.
Creativity. Let us act to forge a better world built in progress, education, investment and wisdom, not in war. We can craft solutions that protect our own ends while contemplating our opponents’ interests. Only rarely must we go to war. Negotiation is not weakness. Negotiation is reconciliation. Negotiation takes maturity. Negotiation is peacemaking. Negotiation preempts death. Talk to Iran. Talk to Syria. Talk to Castro. Talk to Venezuela. Talk to North Korea. Engagement yields insight and information, and knowledge informs negotiation. Negotiation is not weak. Negotiation is smart.
Be certain; in international politics, never are two options the only way. Never. The President doesn’t have two options, good or evil; he has a thousand and one options, along the spectra, from evil to good, from unworkable to effective, from smart to stupid, from unilateral to consensus, from military to economic to political, to personal to spiritual. Nuance does not imply weakness. Nuance and subtlety demonstrate a realistic grasp of grown up problems.
May I now go on the record as new opponents gather on our shores and plot our demise, while dangers multiply and enemies call their guerillas to arms. Now is the season for wisdom, creativity, love, humility and courage. We should not wage war on any of these enemies, because victory does not require war. War imposes too great a cost on our own souls and the lives of those we would shatter. If we go to war against Iran, North Korea, Venezuela or Syria, we will have failed.
posted by JRB at 8:52 PM
9 Comments:
JH: I think it's a grand idea. We were at our creative, innovative, patriotic best in the Space Race. Although the Cold War lurked behind the motivations, the peaceful pursuit for greater humanity demonstrated a greatness in our character.
I also don't think that we could manufacture that kind of spirit and investment without a significant rival interested in the same game. Further, I had lunch with a colleague who is well acquainted with Houston's political scence and the Bushes, and the conventional wisdom is that Houston's energy interested and the Bushes are reliant on each other to such a degree that an "Energy Race" lacks any profit motive or political incentive.
I'll try: JH's link.
I am not of the opinion that there is anything like a partnership on the other side of any of our good intentions to reciprocate with anything like cooperation. Ahmadinejad's primary goal, which he is not hiding and is a matter of public record, is to wipe Israel from the map. That isn't going to change. There are some reasonable voices in Iran who would like regime change, but as long as the mullahs and the ayatollahs remain in control, foreign (and domestic) policy will continue to be shaped by this messianic vision they have, and our intentions, whether peaceful or not, will have nothing to do with it. The only way our actions figure into the mix is as a hurdle to be cleared, or stalled, or eliminated if they can.
That may sound too black and white, but I don't think it's going to change. We certainly can't change it, and the factions within Iran which appear to be more West friendly are not going to be able to, either.
I don't guess it changes the point of your blog as it relates to how we should respond and reach out, and I agree that our tone should be one as you have described. All we can do is try. But I am not optimistic enough to be able to confidently make the statement your piece ends with. War with any of those entities should not be initiated by us, but I think it may come to us and be delivered on our doorstep sooner than any of us likes to think. Ahmadinejad has made the statement that the Mahdi is coming back within two years, and Iran's role to hasten that is to get rid of Israel, so that the entire Middle East is ready for him to lead into conquest of the world, which he will lead in harmony and perfect justice.
Don, I do think your idea is "too black and white" but the bigger point is that negotiation and creativity do not require the cooperation or partnership of our perceived adversaries. Carrots and Sticks come in many, many forms and can be used to entice and affect our adversaries, their neighbors, their business interests, their opposition parties and their citizens directly. Here, I am not talking about covert CIA coups or financed uprisings. We can't afford those either.
Isn't it a crying shame when someone like Ahmadinejad is right? He points out that the U.S., not Iran, cut off diplomatic relations with each other. Surely, we did this in response to the hostage crisis, but refusing obstinately to sulk and not to talk with an enemy is bad policy. I'm hard pressed to think of a moment when isolation and silence accomplished any goal we wanted, but Castro's survival springs quickly to mind in support of the converse point.
Also, Greg's point supports my call for humility. Iraq is a case study in acting on impressions instead of expertise. How might our war plan changes if we had appreciated the depth of feeling among Sunnis, Shia and Kurds. This simple mistake is our undoing in Iraq.
I teach my students that they always will need more information than they have in litigation, even if they don't the time or means to get it. More information is always necessary.
Greg, I agree that it doesn't change JRB's point, and also that much of the problem we have in that region (in the whole world for that matter) is of our own making. When you act like you're the only superpower, it seems to backfire. We could use a lot more humility and the other things Jeff mentioned when dealing with the world. Jesus left us that model.
However, as far as the realism point is concerned, everything I stated in my point is true. I just got through Googling Ahmadinejad and Mahdi and found articles in several places (just finished reading two, from the Christian Science Monitor and from Al Jazeera) which confirmed every point I made. He is making these statements, and is not making them in a vacuum. Realism comes in not-too-pleasant doses at times, no matter how much we wish it otherwise.
hg, my belief is that his vision is so apocalyptic that he feels this is his place in the universe, and that his mission is to do what he is saying he wants done, and to which he is apparently pushing forward on the nuclear issue, regardless of sanctions or anything else. (a point JRB made, sort of--sanctions and the like don't work, anyway).
My point is predicated on my read of what he is. I don't think he's a regular politician as is hinted at in the Columbia Journalism Review article, and simply posturing for power or position. I believe he really is an idealogue, and a fundamentalist religious idealogue, the most dangerous kind. For these, rationalism is irrational (what the pope said). The only goal, and without deference to any other, is ushering in the glorious return of the Mahdi.
My whole argument stands on my belief that he means what he says. If he does not, then of course my whole statement is moot. I think, though, that he does.
This again speaks to my point. Don, you may be right that he's a madman with a Messiah complex, intent on fulfilling an end-times prophecy. (If so, he may not be the only elected leader in this conversation whose "vision is so apocalyptic that he feels this is his place in the universe, and that his mission is to do what he is saying he wants done," but that may be for another day).
Does Mahmoud have the power within his own country to do the deeds you suggest? No, although he's not just a mouthpiece, the real power lies with the shady mullahs, who talk a big game but still suffer a lot of liberalism to keep their power. Taliban they are not.
MA is good for nationalism, good for sabre rattling and good for the neighbors but not so good at world domination, and the real powers know it.
Who runs Iran? Who wants to keep running Iran? Who among Iran's real rulers would risk exponential wealth from Russia and China for a chance to be nuked by Israel? Who among the shady mullahs will allow their president to exceed his PR function if it invited sure destruction?
I'm restating Greg's point and reiterating my own. We don't enough about this state and this nation in Iran to make good decisions. If we acted on your hunch that this guy is some sort of cult-leader, totalitarian dictator, adored by blind hordes of suicide bombers, we would not act with good information. They are relatively comfortable people, living in a relatively stable state, with access to excesses and social services. Tehran even has a swinging night life for the upper crust. IRanians are well educated, literate in world events, and most seem not to be radicalized. If we talk to Iran we might just find out what the State and Nation actually want so that we can reach an end for our own interests without plunging the world into more hysterical chaos.
JRB, I've been out of the conversation for a day, as my #2 son suffered a concussion at a club mixer, and we were in the ER doing CAT scan and follow up until Wed. morning, then I stayed with him yesterday. He's okay, but I was out all yesterday.
I think you are hearing me say we should go to war with Iran, and I am most definitely not saying that. I fear that Iran will bring the war to us, on our shores, here in the good ol US of A. I believe he does have the capacity to try a nuclear attack here, and I think he will do it at some point.
Your vision of trying to dialogue and work with the various parties instead of against them is a good vision, and the way we should proceed. My only point is, again, that I don't think we can say that if we go to war with Iran, it is WE who have failed. I think that eventually, they will go to war with US, and we will have no control over it. We like to think we're in control, but I think this entire scenario is on a whole different level than the temporal kingdoms we are used to dealing with.
That does not preclude our dealing with them in a manner consistent with the teachings of Jesus. That is the only thing over which we have control, and I think your entire post laid that out pretty well. I agree. I don't disagree, and please don't think I've said that.
I think both Chavez and Amahdinejad are mostly just blustering and I don't feel we have much to fear from either. On the other hand you have Kim Jong Il who in my estimation is certifiable, likley has nuclear weapons, and doesn't actually care about and of the "expensive" things.
Even if Mahmoud would be willing to back up his bluster and try to wipe Israel from the map we should always remembre that Israel has time and time again shown that they can take care of themselves. No matter what stage Iran is at in developing a nuclear weapon the fact remains that Israel already has one and would almost certainly use it against Iran.
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