Israel Matzav

The results of isolationist pacifism

A group calling itself "The Columbia Coalition Against the War" has issued an 'open letter' to "Progressive Opponents of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." There's lots in it that shows what's wrong with the worldview of the 'progressives' in which war is to be avoided at all costs.

We fear the demonization of Ahmadinejad, because we think this demonization contributes to the likelihood of war. In the current climate, with many on the political right in the U.S. and Israel pushing for air strikes, a campaign against Ahmadinejad is dangerous, regardless of the intentions of most involved. A call to action, unless it prominently rules out war, implies military action.

A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad's reactionary policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war. The right-wing media, from Fox News to the New York tabloids, has already jumped on the event, and will spin it to favor their cause. Conservative organizations with no affiliation to Columbia's campus, such as the David Project, have already signed on to the rally on Facebook, and are likely to distribute hundreds of warmongering flyers and picket signs. The rally will seem to be a sea of pro-war demonstrators -- and the more people who attend it and the more organizations that endorse it, the more powerful this disastrous message will be.

A U.S. attack on Iran, which is not an inevitability but is a real possibility, would have consequences just as terrible as the invasion of Iraq. Thousands would die in initial air strikes, and more in the resulting backlash and regional conflagration. The work of Iranian campaigners for free speech, women's rights, and lesbian and gay liberation, and against racism and anti-semitism, would be set back immeasurably. As Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi has pointed out, "Human rights are not established by throwing cluster bombs on people. You cannot introduce democracy to a country by using tanks."

There are other means for engagement with Iran than war, and other means for disagreement with Ahmadinejad than the planned protest. We call on those who do not support a war with Iran to be wary of the vilification of Ahmadinejad, to avoid Monday's rally, and to express vocally their opposition to military intervention.

The problem with this view is that once you take the war option off the table entirely, you've effectively given a license to the Ahmadinejad's of the world license to do whatever they please. After all, if Ahmadinejad is confident that no matter what he does, all the civilized nations of the world will do is to shake their fingers at him and say "nu nu nu," he can feel free to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. In fact, he can even be fairly confident that if he blows Israel off the map - as he threatened to do yet again yesterday - no one will come after him in a second straight, because the pacifist, isolationist left will win the day with an argument that there is no point to responding.

While the statement of Shirin Ebadi may well have been corrected five or six years ago, we are rapidly reaching the point where it is no longer the case that there are means of engaging with Iran other than war. This is partly because at every juncture at which the US has sought to impose sanctions, the sanctions have been opposed by Russia and China and have not been enforced by western European countries. But it's also partly because as Ahmadinejad continues to develop nuclear weapons while the UN, IAEA and others bury their heads in the sand (or perhaps don't care), time is running out to stop him by means other than war. The stakes involved just keep getting higher.

We've already seen the results of American isolationism in the run-up to World War II. It cost six million Jewish lives and another six million or more people who were not targeted as an ethnic group. That's a horrible price to pay for ignoring reality. The isolationist pacifist dogma leads to more deaths than would occur in a war. It must be opposed.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:56 AM