This Iran war has caused me contortions. On the one hand, from a geopolitical point of view, I'm strongly one-sided (very much on Trump's side). However, on the moral side, I'm not so sure.
I'd liken it to dealing with a burglar.
If a burglar breaks into your home they're clearly a threat to you. If not a direct threat to you as a person, then certainly to your wealth and wider well-being. Likewise, it would be in your interest to hit the burglar over the head with a metal bar. These facts are all clear.
What's not so clear is the deeper morality. Is it right to physically harm someone if they're not necessarily going to physically harm you? Is it right to potentially take another person's life? Would you want to live with that on your conscience?
With war it's far worse, as it's not just criminals that die, innocent people get caught in the crossfire too. (Though, in counterweight, innocent people could also face harm in your own country if you don't take action. So it's not easy in reality to know what's truly right.)
These are bloody and horrific questions.
Returning to the geopolitics (and ignoring the morals and dead bodies) things are much more clear to me though. It's obvious (at least to me - I could be wrong) that Iran, China and parts of the western elite are all in bed together. They'd like to undermine/side-line/subsume the US, and they'd like to push the US out of the Middle Eastern waters long term (using Iran-backed terrorism). These people are effectively what we call "globalists" in common parlance. They're the people that want a one world government, ran along UN lines. A top down, bureaucratic affair.
Whereas Trump represents a more classically Anglo-American worldview. Sure, it's essentially another form of world hegemony and top-down power, but it's much more democratic and individual liberty orientated. More Common Law as opposed to Napoleonic Law. Though, as I noted in my last post, people on the other side tend to perceive this "freedom" as more akin to anarchy. Like a parent that feels discomfort when they let their unruly child out of their sight.
In fact, when the globalism-aligned Keir Starmer came to power in Britain the media line was, "The Grown-Ups Are Back In Charge." Very telling of how they view the world. Whereas someone like myself would tend to respond, "Hang on a minute, I thought we were all grown-ups here? Isn't this a democracy where everyone is equal?"
So I know what I am and I know what side I'm on in all this, and I don't like the idea of living under a totalitarian, soviet-style world order. Whether bombing is the answer, that's a harder question.
The Alt-Wrong
One thing that's been disappointing, but altogether predictable, is how many on the "right" have just openly sided with Iran. I can respect people being anti-war, I'm half-there myself. Again, it's such an awful and barbarous thing. However, they're not just anti-war, they actually want Trump to lose and be humiliated. They likewise seem filled with glee when missiles hit Israel or other American allies in the region. (Yes, some of the glee on the American/Israel side is also sickening, but you can't have it both ways. You can't claim to be a morally superior pacifist and then smile when bombs hit civilians.)
I think there are three main reason why so many have sided with Iran. One possibility is that these people are just more Eurasian in their outlook than I am. That is, they're more socialist and less individualist - so feel less threatened by stable, but monolithic states like China. (The online right do tend to have a bit of a communitarian vibe in general.)
The second is partly the media. We've lived in a landscape where the media have been telling us how great China is for the last twenty years or so. We saw the high point of this at the outset of Covid, when the media begged us to "copy China." So people have been conditioned to see China as benevolent and to view the lack of democracy there as nothing to worry about. Consequently, I come across people online who scream that Trump is a "dictator," yet at the same time praise "President for Life" Xi. These people have been primed for a world where China is the number one power and primed not to fear it.
The third reason is that people in the west see the lies on the western side more so. The lies at home are less distant than the lies that are far away. So they feel more outraged and angry that their own governments are lying to them than they feel threatened by distant dictatorships.
All governments lie and fake and contort. Morally it's wrong. I certainly find it very hard to stomach. Yet at the same time it's almost hoping for the impossible in expecting them not to do it. Lying is such an effective strategy. It's hardwired into nature. There's a reason the chameleon changes its colour.
So there's a real art to getting past the lies and viewing the picture beneath. In a way that isn't just focused on your own lying politicians.
Still, when you realise or suspect your own government or media is misleading you, it's going to cause conflict. It's like a relationship where one person isn't being honest. It becomes difficult to understand the other person. Who they really are. What they really want. Deep down they might have good intentions, but at some point you just decide you want nothing to do with them.
So now Trump is just a liar, and they want nothing to do with him. The idea that he might be lying for them, as part of a conflict against another bunch of liars, is lost in the confusion and emotion. If he's lying for anyone he's lying for Israel (or in other versions Putin). Whereas the lies from Iran are far away and unseen. If they say they're not building nuclear weapons, then that must be the truth. They're given a benefit of trust that western politicians aren't.
(It reminds me of the Hitler line that he liked Britain and the British Empire and didn't want to undermine or go to war with it. That's great if you just take Hitler's word for it, but it's not so great if you think Hitler is a lying dictator, who, in actuality, has other plans.)
Lastly (and briefly)
Another disappointment for me is how so many people have just viewed this as another Iraq. I've already typed quite enough, so I won't elaborate too much. I dislike the thinking by rote though. There are obvious similarities: it's an American war; it's in the Middle East. But there are also huge differences. Iraq was a rogue, but stable state. It wasn't an existential threat to US hegemony. Back then there was a naive confidence that it was "the end of history," and that America, as the remaining world power, could just walk in and erect a liberal democracy. Here Iran is part of a growing, competing bloc. That naive confidence is gone. Trump just wants Iran defanged. The prospect of regime change is a wanted, but unlikely possibility. Boots on the ground won't be used to attempt it. (I don't think.)
Nevertheless, as I've said, and it's always worth reminding myself, I don't really know for sure. This is just my reading of the situation. I do know though that when I hear people say, "This is another Iraq," nothing much insightful will come from them.
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