I have been trying to determine why the bombing of Iran, the world’s most industrious sponsor of state terror, has left me not exhilarated but uneasy. It’s not for any affinity for the Ayatollah’s regime, which is at once oppressive at home and malignant abroad. No tears need be shed for it.
Part of my disquiet, as I’ve already articulated, is my severe skepticism that regime change is going to follow bombing, that somehow an unarmed and very divided population is going to rise up against a militarized police state and overthrow it just because we killed some people and blew up buildings. We have, after all, seen this film before. Iraq was supposed to be the rehearsal dinner for democratic flourishing. Instead, it became a protracted lesson in the difference between winning a war and constructing a peace. But I’ve been wrong before, and I would be happily surprised to be wrong about this.
Yet my deeper unease is not strategic, but moral. War, even when justified, should be conducted with solemnity. I understand that sometimes you have to go to war and sometimes you have to kill people, and I’ve argued before about the untenability of allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. There’s a very strong argument that we reached the limits of diplomacy and we are left only with military options. But even then, war should always be done with extreme sobriety. Bringing death and pain to people, even to our enemies, is not something that should be done to rousing applause. It should be done with a sense of gravity, with a sense of: we are sorry that we had to be brought to this point. We are sorry to have to do this. We are sorry you put us in this awful position. We hate this. Not “How marvelous that we get to do it.”
I saw Reince Priebus on Fox News rebuking the New York Times editorial board for asking what the strategy is and why this will be different from Iraq and Afghanistan. His complaint was essentially: can’t you just take a breath for one minute and celebrate with the rest of us? Can’t you just take a short break from your reflexive hatred for President Trump and cheer that he pointed to a spot on the map and said “blow that up”?
No, you wait a minute, Reince. What the Times is asking is not treachery, it is a legitimate question. It deserves to be answered. And it is precisely the question previous administrations asked themselves, and sometimes answered in the negative, because possessing the capacity to bomb with near impunity is not the same as possessing a plan for what follows. To inquire about strategy is not to betray one’s country. It is to take its fate seriously.
But more fundamentally than that, even if this is correct strategically, I don’t know that war itself should ever be celebrated. Bombs are not fireworks on the Fourth of July! It’s one thing at the end of a war to celebrate its conclusion, to honor those who fought, to be grateful that peace was restored, to cheer the liberation of innocents. And I am happy for the Iranian people (for those who want reform, anyway) that they see we are supporting them. But it is quite something else to celebrate the act of bringing death from above, with all the collateral consequences we don’t see and don’t think about, to a lot of innocent people along with the guilty. Even if we only hit the guilty, that too should be done with a sense of necessity, rather than joy.
As a lawyer and occasional prosecutor, I am mindful that even the imposition of modest penalties ought never to become a source of enjoyment. If I levy a fine or argue for the incarceration of a repeat drunk driver, I do so not because it gratifies me but because the law and the public safety require it. Justice requires restraint and humility even in the assignment of fines. How much more so when the penalties are measured in lives?
War is not the Super Bowl, a spectator sport where we cheer for our side, and high-five at hard hits. It is not a cable-news highlight reel. It is a deadly serious endeavor, and it should only be conducted by a deadly serious people. Even when force is justified, it is tragic. A morally serious nation can say: this regime is dangerous, this action may be necessary, and we take no pleasure in it.
So be mad at me all you want. Tell me to “shut up” as so many of you have. (Very intelligent retort, by the way). But keep this in mind: Resolve is one thing. Celebration is another. To collapse the distinction between those two risks winning battles at the expense of losing something essential about who we are. And I know that it’s getting harder to define who we are as a nation, but whatever it is, we are not warmongers. At least, I hope not.
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