I’ve been rather busy the last couple of days, so it has prevented me from posting. I assume most people have been following the Iranian situation closely. I don’t have much to add on the factual details on the ground: Nico at HuffingtonPost, Andrew at TheAtlantic have been doing a beyond phenomenal job that will hopefully earn one of them a Pulitzer.
My interest right now is on the debate in the United States over what course of action the US should undertake. The Neo-conservatives are split between wanting to show up with tanks and stop the basji, or whether we should accept the defeat of Mousavi and the fact that Iran is a member of the axis of evil.
All of this goes back to the idea that the United States must have an answer to everything that is going on in the world, which itself brings complications to the table. Globalization has made staying on the sidelines incredible difficult.
Prior to about 1980, nations generally minded their own business, except to colonize and invade. You wouldn’t have expected the Japanese government to have a response to something that’s happening in Eritea. I’m not too sure you would today ask for the Japanese government to have a response, but that’s another question entirely.
Indeed, throughout much of world history, only several conditions implied that a nation had to have some sort of policy response to an occurrence in another nation:
- Control – It is a smaller nation that has historically depended on you for some sort of sustenance or lead.
- Self-interest – You have the ability to gain something from intervening in the affairs of another state.
In the post-WWII world, there are two more conditions:
- Moral – Claims to moral influence based on the behavior of the nation. Very few nations have historically been able to make this claim.
- Hegemonic – Based on the ability to actively affect issues everywhere; the basis of this is the potential to act and the assumption that most issues in the world affect you.
Given the situation in Iran, the following actors can be seen as interacting: the United Nations, based on a moral and political actor as the representative of human rights on the world at large; the United States, based on hegemonic considerations; Russia, based on self-interest; Some Western European Nations, based on their moral claims of arbitration.
The problem is that the conception of interference has evolved from Western power dynamics, particularly the United States and its hegemonic conception. Borne out of the aftermath of WWII, American foreign policy thinkers have effectively been able to demand that the United States have a position on the internal on goings of almost every other nation.
Furthermore, nobody likes it when a state interferes in the affairs of another state, even if it’s just words. The US, in particular, has a lot of baggage as an actively hegemonic force, rather than just as a state that has historically taken sides.
Hence, why President Obama’s comments in this situation must come off as light: the American public demands some sort of response and so he will be asked questions about it. It’s the nature of the ballgame. Iranians don’t want the United States anywhere near this, other than as some sort of neutral arbiter. The neo-conservatives, on the other hand, seem to want the US to act based on self-interest, hegemony and moral weight, which dooms us to a policy of contradiction and self-righteousness as we pillage the land and do what we want with it.
Most people in the world don’t believe we are neutral. Particularly in the aftermath of the Bush administration, I assume most believe we are looking for an excuse to invade their nations. Iranians, in particular, don’t see good things with American involvement: the opposition knows that the US has historically supported dictatorships, military intervention, etc. The opposition may look up to President Obama, but most of Iran still continues to see the US and the West, writ large, as an imperialist force. Hence, why the reformers want the US and the West to keep quiet.
Finally, there’s the perceived American power, almost nation-wide, of moral involvement. The US historical claims to be a center for Democracy and freedom are rendered absurd almost anywhere else in the world, yet this narrative has resonated quite strongly in the American population. This makes it really problematic when Americans, not just conservatives, make moral claims to the need for involvement. This is particular true as we see the stunning images coming from Iran, which seems to imply that a people’s is a oppressed (which they are) and that somebody needs to save them (which they don’t), and thus, the hegemonic and the moral merge into one strain.
All of this turns into one messy situation, with various groups and political orientations demanding some sort of policy from the American government as to what they think and will do, which is almost opposite to what actually needs to be done: nothing. Yet the pressure will remain there to act.
As I mentioned above, globalization is complicating all of this further by giving us instant access; Twitter provides Americans and the world a peak into the world of what’s going on in Iran, which, through shared mediums and humanization, makes individuals wish to be involved in finding a solution to end the violence. Thus, what I frame as the 5th condition of involvement, which is the empathetic. It’s why more governments across the world are forming some sort of response, at least in the vocal level, including Canada, France, England, Germany, among others. In the United States particularly, which recently saw an election where the young participated in never-before-seen rates, the images of students being attacked provide particular resonance. Even amongst those that don’t believe in American hegemony or that we have a moral claim to action, there is still the idea that we need to find a way, because they are our peers.
Isolationism is long dead and it’s not coming back. I’m not too sure a citizenry would allow you to remain isolationist. The question then becomes: if you are an administration, and all empirical data says it’s bad to be involved, how do you satisfy your population while still actually contributing to those that you wish to support, even if you think your blatant support won’t help?
President Obama’s challenge has been this. I think he’s done a remarkable job. The only thing we can state are: we dislike violence and that people should be allowed to choose their government. Those two basic principles are about the only ones where we have even a vague credibility on and they are rather neutral in the situation.
That’s the best we can do for Iran from the state level. Long term, we should be developing tools that allow the walls of cyber-communication to be brought down, which could serve as a potential tool for protesters. However, in almost all of these circumstances, our involvement would only hurt the pro-democratic side. Please remember that.
Keep on following. Keep on watching. Try not to ask President Obama to do anything that would actively destroy the reform movement by asking for direct involvement.
