Foreign policy can make a mockery of moral conviction. You are attempting to master an anarchic landscape policed by violence. There, ideological differences make America's polarization seem like a friendly neighbor, where even the superpower's ability to impose its will dissolves at distance, and where any grandiose project can't compete with a nation more than tyrannical. You will need an alliance.
This is clear when considering past dilemmas. This is why the “good war” of World War II allied itself with the Moscow monster and subjugated half of Europe to totalitarian oppression. That is why Vietnam's “bad war” was only averted at the cost of betraying South Vietnam and making a deal with yet another monster in Beijing.
However, in the midst of lively debate, a tragic vision can seem like a cold view of the world. If we lean too much into it, we can be accused of ignoring injustice or of rehashing the indifference that covered up past atrocities.
In some cases, these accusations can hurt a little. A “realist” foreign policy could move from accounting for power to condoning plunder. It can underestimate the power of a just cause — like I underestimated the ability to defend Ukraine in 2022.
But it remains essential, especially in the kind of moral zeal that accompanies conflicts like Israel's war in Gaza, to view national politics as a tragic balance of evils. The alternative is a form of argument in which essential aspects of the world that are inconvenient to moral absolutism simply disappear.
For example, when I read apologies for pro-Palestinian protests by certain left-wing intellectuals, they exaggerate Israel's moral failings and feel both an omission and an exaggeration. It is not enough that a war with so many casualties is unjust. If it's wrong, it must be genocide. That would suppress the harsh implications of a simple call for peace.
A classic passage from Pankaj Mishra in the London Review of Books argues that many protesters were “devoted to the ideals that seemed universally desirable after 1945: respect for freedom, belief in other people's beliefs and ways of life, and more.” It is motivated by a simple desire to preserve tolerance for human nature.” ; solidarity with human suffering; and a sense of moral responsibility towards the weak and persecuted. ”
There is no doubt that many of the campus protesters have these motives. The difficulty is that liberal “freedom” is not offered anywhere in the Middle East, certainly not in Gaza under Hamas control, and the most difficult “otherness of belief” in this situation is , the beliefs that motivated the October 7 massacre.
Another problem is that some of the instigators of the protests, including some of the student organizations that were active in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, do not seem to care about this fact and are willing to simply negotiate peacefully. Instead, he has no qualms about supporting the revolutionary struggle led by Islamist fanatics.
This creates a moral dilemma that the protesters do not acknowledge. Ending the war on their desired terms could result in a major strategic victory for a regional coalition dedicated to killing Israelis and expelling them from the Middle East.
Perhaps the Gaza war is sufficiently unjust, and Israel's goals sufficiently unattainable, that there may be no choice but to correct Hamas's bloody strategy. But you have to be honest about what you stand for. It is not the triumph of “universally desirable” ideals, but the brutal weighing of evil.
And a similar point applies to supporters of Israel's war, where moral considerations such as the evils of Hamas, the historical suffering of the Jewish people, and the special relationship between America and Israel are brought up in a stubborn way as a debate-breaker. . Whenever we are unsure whether Israel knows what it is doing, we are urged to “stand with Israel.” President Joe Biden's administration has been accused of treachery when it tried to influence Israel's war effort, even though the Israeli government's decisions around October 7 have not inspired much confidence.
Biden's specific attempts to micromanage the conflict may be misguided or haphazard. But America, an empire dealing with growing threats, is right to refuse to write a blank check to wars that are waged without a clear plan for victory or peace.
Alternative proposal clear For example, Mitt Romney's words, “We stand by our allies and don't second-guess them'' are not serious policy for a hegemon balancing global obligations. And the religious vision of House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Christian Zionists that the reconstituted state of Israel is evidence of providential planning does not mean that the Israeli government is immune from strategic failure. Let's go read the book of Kings!
In both cases, there is a desire that reflects the impulse of left-wing intellectuals to make foreign policy easier by condensing everything into a single moral judgment. However, the world's problems cannot be solved so easily.
Having cold, tragic thoughts does not mean abandoning morality. But that often means recognizing that no one is simply right, that there is no single morally obvious approach, and that there is no clean strategy.
