War and waste

Cameron Loses Vote on Syria …bbc

But I can’t help and think about what might have happened had the French and the English not caved in in Munich. The Sudetes were a strong defense against Germany (a natural barrier duly fortified by the Czechoslovaks), the Germans increased their industrial output by 25% to 50% when they annexed Czechoslovakia, and the agreement gave the Germans another year to actively prepare for war.
Are we sure that this situation will never present itself again? And if it does, will we know how to recognize it?

Ian S. Conflicts in the middle east are nothing like your example because:

1. The countries we intervene in tend to be of no immediate threat to the US or UK.

2. Since gulf war 1 we haven’t been intervening to stop an invader.

Kicking an invader out of a country is a lot more justifiable imo than trying to topple dictators or taking sides in civil wars given the plausible outcomes.

@3

Oh… piss off.

If that was parody, it was far too well executed. And completely agree with JQ’s argument. I can totally come up a hypothetical military intervention I’d support. Just never an actually existing one.

#3 … in point of fact the RAF was in no way prepared to take on the Luftwaffe at the time of Munich. Radar interception was having huge teething problems. Aircraft production was poor. By mid 1940 all that had changed to the UKs advantage. And Britain was thus able to win its eponymous Battle.

No war, no state. Then what?

Middle eastern oil never mattered enough to justify our actions in Libya or Iraq.

“Happy the land that knows no history”

This is the sentiment I so often feel, especially when “History” gets in the way of truth. But history can also inform us of both the limitation of and tbe extent of one’s powers. The US can not spread its revolution by force, just as France could not in the 1790s. However just by being we spread our revolutions. It was the example of France that inspired a generation of Germans, it was the actions of France that created Prussian militarism and warped the revolution of 1789 far more than Robiespierre. When we invaded Iraq we unleashed something that was already there, but even being exceptionally charitable to Bush/Cheney (The Hitchens position of assuming pure motives to the neocons) it was a disaster that may have warped an inchoate need in the Arabic speaking world for the rights of man into brutal sectarianism. I can see how if one lived without knowledge of History one could think that external force could improve things, but actual history makes this an act of either wilful self-delusion or actual evil.

So if war was cheap and in the national interest – you’d be be all for it?

I have a fundamental issue with consequentialist anti-war arguments – though they are better than nothing – as I regard war as intrinsically evil (and I’m in good company just google a page with antiwar quotes, you’d be surprised, not that it really matters).

But even taken at face value such arguments ignore the fact that wars do generate a lot of profit for a select group of people and that they serve the perceived or real interests of the power elites.

Btw, casually pontificating about war seems to be much easier if you happen to live in a country that hasn’t had the pleasure of experiencing one on its soil in the past century.

Totally off topic but Dr Quiggan is now world famous in New Zealand after figuring prominently in this documentary that aired last night (from 14:00 to about 21:00):

http://www.tv3.co.nz/INSIDE-NEW-ZEALAND-Mind-The-Gap/tabid/3692/articleID/94816/MCat/3061/Default.aspx

Oh and even more off-topic, ‘Quiggan’ is pronounced very differently from the way I had supposed.

International brigades in the Spanish civil war is one scenario, and a state-controlled (most likely mercenary) army intervening in another state’s civil war is a very different scenario.

What struck me about Sec State Kerry’s speech the other day was his referring to “…the indiscriminate use of these weapons….” As if there could be a discriminating use?

Well sure, Kerry has to leave the door open for the US to use white phosphorus ‘illumination rounds’ and the like.

“The British are not backing down; they intend to send Assad a very sternly worded letter.”

I don’t agree with JQ on the futility of (armed) revolution, mostly because I think that violence is sometimes forced upon us; and in particular that the dictatorship of capital (and other oppressive modes of production historically, like for example slavery) we live under is itself unavoidably violent. Cf. John Holbo’s earlier post to see how fear of violent radical change can be a justification for a violent status quo. But I do share the strong skepticism towards violence in most particular cases arising. (E.g., the massive violence of the Syrian civil war is, to me, an indication of the political weakness of the rebellion there – and political weakness cannot be substituted by military strength in the long run.)

JQ@34: Ah well, as you say, we’ve been over this before, and it’s bedtime here in Cambridge (USA).

A last thought, in a different vein: speaking truth to power (e.g., trying to persuade the readers of The National Interest that some morally depraved policy is not in their economic self-interest) seems to me — however admirable your intentions and persuasive your arguments — a mug’s game. Sooner or later, their immediate self-interest will lead them to ruin the planet, slaughter millions of its inhabitants, and/or enslave millions more. More useful in the (very) long run — albeit admittedly so enormous a task that it’s hard even to know where to start — is demonstrating their self-interest to the powerless and persuading them to act on it.

(It’s interesting that when people are listing the few “good wars”, they always say WWII and often the US Civil War, but no one ever mentions e.g. the US-Vietnam war from the perspective of Vietnam. Were Vietnamese people wrong to fight for a unified, independent country?)

A short list of significant revolutions isn’t terribly promising: the English, American, French, Haitian, Russian, Chinese, Cuban; 1848 and 1989.

Only 1989 and the American Revolution are unambiguous successes, with nearly immediate redress of popular grievances and stable and democratic successor regimes.

I suppose the French was for the best in the long run (although revisionist historians increasingly disagree.) It’s hard to muster much enthusiasm when you read about the Nantes drownings…

The Haitian example is stirring, but almost immediately led to slaughter of the remaining whites, new form of serfdom for the blacks, and a couple centuries of misery — probably still preferable to enslavement by the French, though.

Beyond Stalin and Mao’s gruesome human toll, the Russian Revolution and its progeny possibly sunk — for good — humanity’s chances of moving beyond capitalism. History might be quite different if the German Revolution had been enough of one to make my short list…

JQ @40:

Presumably, the French would have left sooner or later, same as everywhere else….

This is a weird argument to make for a couple of reasons. One, it doesn’t actually answer the “were they wrong?” question JW Mason posed. Things may often turn out fine, or even better, if one were not to do something one is perfectly justified in doing. The important point here is that Vietnam case for the Vietnamese is not at all like a military intervention for the interveners—it’s right and proper to demand that the latter clear a very high bar of justification, and it’s not at all clear that such would or should apply for indigenous armed resistance to colonial (or other) occupiers. (This assumes a prior lack of moral standing for colonizers as such, and that’s not accidental.)

Secondly, the “they would have left anyway (sooner or later)” is also a bit strange in context, because surely you could make the same argument about slavery in the American South. Other places in the western hemisphere managed to get rid of chattel slavery without a civil war, and it’s not implausible to suggest that the same would have occurred in the US—sooner or later. Would you want to run the same sort, “what if the North had not fought after all?” question here. I’m not asking this as a rhetorical question.

It’s a good thing the British parliament voted against it. I hope the French do so as well.

I don’t see how American interests are served by ousting Assad and letting the Islamists take over. Assad has not been aggressive towards Israel but an Islamist government might be. To say nothing of how Iran might react. Syria is no more a nation state than Iraq and if it takes a dictator to hold it together, what of it? Let the Syrians resolve it for themselves and break up into tribal homelands if they will.

To bring back an old 60’s phrase, they didn’t fight in our civil war. We don’t owe them anything.

Perhaps war time inflation helped as well by favouring debtors over creditors.

Quiggin @47
And if the US has instead divided, then the US would not be in political pickle it is today – the conferacy would be the North American equivalent of Pakistan.

John Quiggin: Brazil was the last major country to end slavery, and I think that was around 1870. Why did Brazil end slavery? I’m not aware of any particular pressure on them to do so. (I’m asking; I know very little about Brazilian history.)

Refugees from the Confederacy started a colony in Brazil; I think they even brought their slaves along. It’s still there, kind of, although the inhabitants have long since assimilated into the general population.

I assume Quiggin is a name of English origin; I can think of only one way to pronounce it. Am I missing something?

“Rather, if war was in the *interests of humanity as a whole*, which was probably true of WWII, but very few others. ”

On the more limited subject of liberal interventionism by military means there’s a few recent ones that could and should be added to that list. Liberia and Sierra Leone I would argue for. And I’d similarly argue that shipping off a few battalions to take care of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army would make the world a better place.

And Dallaire’s book certainly argues (convincingly to me) that Rwanda could have been averted with a little more military intervention.

Which is to say, above, colonialism or occupation always have *some* (at times considerable) domestic support in the colonised/occupied country

Particularly after 1880 – the 1870s weren’t so good. This might be a generation echo from the civil war (relatively few new entrants to the labour force causing a labour shortage).

@55: Quite so, but the problem, obviously, is that the inviolability of sovereignty is always invoked when action warranted, and ignored whenever it isn’t; the point being, perhaps, that those who decide that a war is desirable are not generally moved by considerations of humanitarianism. (Perhaps because they are making 20$ selling old weapons to the LRA?)

In any case, I would also submit a quote for consideration, by the consummate liberal Woodrow Wilson.

Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down … Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused.

I cite this not because I have a clear idea of which industry stands to gain from bombing/indvading/whatever they would like to do to Syria; but because it strikes me as so completely random that now that there are alleged ‘chemical attacks’ (using “a substance”), a decision has suddenly been made to punish Assad (or his population? All of this whole pars pro toto/aggregation stuff that comes with talking about nation-states is so confusing). I therefore assume that this is just the stick, and that the desire/plans to unseat him/force governments to spend money on bombardments/the eventual contracts for rebuilding predate the ‘atrocity’.
On the whole, I think what we need is more ‘Shock Doctrine-esque’ analysis of the entire field of companies/industries that profit from calamity/upheaval, as well as a better understanding of how all of those actors influence policy. (Do they coordinate their message? Do they work independently? Do they talk about promoting such military interventions specifically, or do they just create a subconscious desire in politicians to create work for them?)

@62 or, from Brecht (I think, although teh internets don’t help) ‘the only war worth fighting is the war against war’.

reason (at 48)

I’m curious about the suggestion that warfare in the 1860s (I guess you mean the US Civil War?) led to a demand for healthier soldiers. Where does that come from?

@66:

Which begs the question, in the contemporary and near future world, is it actually going to remain possible to choose to stay out of a war?

Certainly, the meaningful debate will not be pro or anti-war, or pro or anti-imperialism, whatever that means these days. But between the parallel options of _end the war_ and _avoid the war_.

Someone should probably come up with concise and unambiguous ideological labels for those those positions.

“I cite this not because I have a clear idea of which industry stands to gain from bombing/indvading/whatever they would like to do to Syria; but because it strikes me as so completely random that now that there are alleged ‘chemical attacks’ (using “a substance”), a decision has suddenly been made to punish Assad (or his population?”

It seems that Obama really doesnt want this war. He drew the line in the sand on chemical weapons to ‘do something’ but not expecting Assad to use them. Now he’s responding to pressure within his own admin and out of need to save face

@69: so war because of narcissism? Then why jump the gun again and act before “evidence” has been collected?

I assume Quiggin is a name of English origin

Manx, I think.

On the more limited subject of liberal interventionism by military means there’s a few recent ones that could and should be added to that list. Liberia and Sierra Leone I would argue for

Sierra Leone wasn’t a “liberal intervention”, because it wasn’t an intervention at all. UNAMSIL was a supporting mission asked for by the government of Sierra Leone to help them control a terrorist movement, and Operation Palliser was a British mission (also with the support of the legitimate government of Sierra Leone) to rescue UNAMSIL troops. The US “intervention” in Liberia was mainly a force of Marines protecting their own embassy and had pretty little to do with ending the Civil War, which was a triumph of diplomacy. And if you think that the reason that the Ugandan military hasn’t captured Joseph Kony is that they lack a “few battalions”, you really might want to wait a bit before making recommendations on East African policy.

gordon @65
Actually the suggestion was that French decided this (slightly later – Franco-Prussian war) and it came from Z here:

https://crookedtimber.org/2013/08/29/how-moral-revolutions-happen-they-had-a-nightmare/#comment-480479

I agree with geo 37 that utilitarian approach is not very useful here. Not very enlightened either. As far as the wars between states are concerned, I believe it calls for deontological imperative, a taboo. This, I imagine, is what most people felt in 1945; and there was an attempt to make it so. The problem is, life goes on and this feeling fades away. And then utilitarian considerations take over, and then you have a ‘debate’, and then the most powerful interests win. End of story.

71 ….just to add, can we call a military strike to reinforce a norm against use of chemical weapons as ‘war’

@reason 76

mass politics?

random lurker @81 – yes could be. I noted this from the Wikipedia report on the Crimean war
“The Crimean War was one of the first wars to be documented extensively in written reports and photographs: notably by William Russell (writing for The Times newspaper[12]) and the photographs of Roger Fenton.[13] News from war correspondents reached all nations involved in the war and kept the public citizenry of those nations better informed of the day-to-day events of the war than had been the case in any other war to that date. However, nowhere more than Britain was the public kept better informed of the day-to-day realities of the war in the Crimea.[14] Consequently, public opinion played a larger role in this war than in any other war in history.”

…to add to my 77: if you read JQ’s analysis of the Civil War, it’s clear that his attitude towards slavery is deontological rather than utilitarian, which is overwhelmingly common, although I heard Louis CK a couple of weeks ago pointing out that this attitude may not be entirely rational.

To end the wars, this has to be the attitude towards them as well, otherwise at least a threat of war will remain an accepted tool of foreign policy, and threats need to be credible, so you’ll have wars too…

@85 “although I heard Louis CK a couple of weeks ago pointing out that this attitude may not be entirely rational.”

Please elaborate.

@87, oh, it’s just a comedy act, not important. You’d need to watch it, it’s on HBO.

My biggest problem with an intervention in Syria is that the west has proofen over and over that it cant be trusted . So any attempt to move beyond a simple no war/intervention no matter what the given reason norm cannot possibly work. Rather any further western invasion undermines the very basic level of trust that does exist between nations. Libya has shown Russia and China that if they dont veto any intervention, the west will use a narrow mandate to avoid civilian death as an excuse for regime change in his favour.

Although Ian S. now says @80 that he was simply reacting to a statement of JQ’s in the OP, he brought up Munich in comment #3 and proceeded to ask:

Are we sure that this situation will never present itself again? And if it does, will we know how to recognize it?

I’m not sure these questions are v. helpful. A better question is: Will we be able to refrain from relying on misleading analogies in situations where they don’t apply, or apply only very partially?

In his 1978 book Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy since the Cold War, Stanley Hoffmann wrote:

Much has already been written about the “lessons” of Vietnam. One of them is precisely the uniqueness of Vietnam or, rather, the need to refrain from mechanically applying disembodied principles…–the need to take into full account the specific features of each country and issue…. To some extent, Vietnam was one more application of the imperative, “no more Munichs” (as Munich itself was the result of the imperative that dictated French and British behavior in the thirties — “no more summers of 1914”). A blanket rule of “no more Vietnams” could easily be as calamitous as previous retrospective analogies. (p.22, emphasis added)

He then goes on to say: “However, just as there was something to be learned from the summer of 1914, and something to be avoided after Munich, much ought to be remembered from Vietnam.”

The message I infer from what I’ve just quoted is that ‘lessons’ and parallels are somewhat unavoidable and can sometimes be useful but must be drawn carefully and with “attention to the specific features” of each issue/problem/etc. Bringing up Munich and asking “are we sure this situation will never present itself again?”, although you may have meant it just as a reaction to one statement in JQ’s post, is something of a red flag in these sorts of discussions precisely b.c the Munich analogy has a history of being misapplied, most notably in the case of the U.S. war in Vietnam but not only there. I think that’s largely why you (Ian S.) got the reaction you got.

LFC @ 93

Do we not above all have to weigh the sincerity of the historical analogy being brandished for our approval? I suppose you could argue that sometimes we actually do become the victims of sloppy thinking by battleship admirals who can’t see beyond the embarrassments of their youth, but to me it seems much more often the case that we’re being manipulated by cynics of one sort or another. Did anyone really believe at the time that the failure to attack Iraq would make Neville Chamberlains of us all? I’d say that those who did were dupes, and ought to have enquired more carefully into the motives of the foreign policy apparatchiks who were so tirelessly flogging their analogies through the transatlantic marketplace of ideas.

Obama’s apparent determination to “go it alone”, internationally and domestically, seems so politically stupid, that it takes the breath away. Parliament’s example just highlights the fact that Obama is not asking Congress for permission, as he is Constitutionally obligated to do, and the Administration apparently regards contempt for the UN, Russia or allies of any kind, as a badge of honor. Not since Czar Nicholas took command in WWI has there been a display of such hubris. The force of the Iraq experience and Snowden revelations puts Occam’s razor clearly on the side of assuming as a fact, that everything the Administration says is a bald-face lie.

Quiggin hopes for a recognition that war is a bad option. I wonder how we can get reason to operate at all, when jealousy of power, secrecy, authoritarian attitudes and political dynamics produces such obstinacy in even apparently intelligent leaders.

The interesting thing is (according to the book Appeasing Bankers by Jonathan Kirshner) the ‘financial sector’ usually opposses war out of self interest (at least in his case studies)

“It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalist democracy to organize expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiment that would prove my case—except in war conditions.” …John Maynard Keynes

War or Full Employment?

Revolution.

I didn’t know Munich had a long history of being used and abused.

Have you been residing on Planet Earth these past several years? You might just want to start with a Google News search for “appeasers”. Go from there.

Wm Timberman:

Did anyone really believe at the time that the failure to attack Iraq would make Neville Chamberlains of us all? I’d say that those who did were dupes, and ought to have enquired more carefully into the motives of the foreign policy apparatchiks who were so tirelessly flogging their analogies through the transatlantic marketplace of ideas.

I take your point, not all uses of a given analogy are sincere, to be sure; many are just manipulative. However, my guess — and I’m just speculating — is that ‘the Munich analogy’ got a sort of fresh lease on life w the *first* Gulf War, where George H.W. Bush invoked it in making the case of for expelling Iraq from Kuwait. And in that case, since at least on the surface it looked to be a fairly traditional case of state X (Iraq) attacking state Y (Kuwait), the analogy had a certain force. I’m aware that beneath the surface things were more complicated. That said, Desert Storm was an operation that had very wide international support and a UN imprimatur, iirc, unlike the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which didn’t have either.

“but that doesn’t change the basic distinction between somebody who’s living with violence as a fact of their lives in a highly oppressive or colonial regime on the hand, and those sitting in various “war rooms”, boardrooms, etc., half a world away. The former can have violence “forced upon them” as christian_h says, whereas it’s absurd to make the same claim about the latter”

Ah okay, fair point. I see the distinction you’re getting at.
The only thing that gives me pause re western interventions is that there are times, I think, when the aim of furthering national interests or dominating other countries does get stripped away (more or less), and we’re left with a genuine desire to protect populations at risk.* I think thats a worthy aspiration, although it doesnt seem to play out well in practice (although sometimes,under certain circumstances, it can)

* though I know thats not what the Syrian intervention is about

Ian S.
I am still surprised at the emotional reactions my post generated. I didn’t know Munich had a long history of being used and abused.
That’s ok: no one knows everything and there is certainly a great deal that I don’t know; I’m glad to have brought this particular thing to your attention.

Once we agree there exist wars worth fighting, my question is valid (slightly rephrased): When a war worth fighting presents itself again, will we know how to recognize it?
I’m not sure. I think in any case they will be fairly unusual cases. That’s my short answer. War in general is in decline, so maybe the question will come up less and less often. One can hope so, at any rate.

As an historical footnote, I’m not sure Chamberlain’s policy is all that well understood by those who like to invoke the Munich analogy. This is not a defense of Chamberlain at all, just an observation. His aim was a general settlement of claims etc., hence he used ‘appeasement’ in the sense of ‘pacification’ and spoke not of the appeasement of Germany but of the appeasement of Europe (D. Kaiser, Politics and War, 1990, p.385 n.51). Of course this approach didn’t work in a Europe that contained Hitler, b/c Hitler’s aims were what they were (large-scale territorial conquest), and Chamberlain et al. can/should be faulted for not taking what H. said in Mein Kampf at face value. He meant it.

The greatest threat to stability and order (forget about peace and justice) at the moment is Obama. How could he have come out and said, through Kerry, that, despite the total lack of support from whatever quarter for his intervention, he alone will decide? How can a rational person think that, by bombing Damascus, Obama can fend off any challenge to his self-proclaimed reign of the planet?

The thing about rhetoric and accusations of bad faith is that they cut both ways. Human rights as a cover for imperialism? I may as well say that the pacifism here is a cover for cowardice and – let’s face it – racism. I simply don’t believe that if European children were being gassed and burned alive, that so many would be so sanguine. But I don’t believe in that method of argumentation.

Of course war is a bad thing. But there’s already a war, being waged by the Assad regime against its own people. If the USA stays out of it, it doesn’t end the war, it just condemns the weak to be crushed under the boots of the strong.

Frankly I am disgusted by Milliband’s vacillation, cowardice and pettiness, and I had hoped to see similar condemnations here.

Vacillation? Cowardice?? Pettiness??? Miliband’s done Britain a great service and deserves great credit for it, not personalised playground namecalling.

I suspect that Ed Miliband – like the majority of the British public – doesn’t want Britain involved in any attack on Syria that the US might be about to launch. To the extent that it’s not politically possible to say that, he doesn’t want Britain involved in an attack launched without Security Council backing, and to the extent that it’s not politically possible to say that (how far we’ve fallen!) he doesn’t want Britain involved in an attack which runs counter to the UN’s expressed wishes. Even if I’m wrong about points 1 and 2 – and his position really is the weak gruel of “let’s not do it until the UN’s had a chance to say they tried it their way” – this position dictates one key tactical priority, viz. to stop the rush to war. Which he’s achieved, through some very adept political manoeuvring – albeit nothing outstandingly elaborate or underhand; anyone who’s ever been involved in a strike or an employment tribunal has faced worse.

The weakling here is Cameron. To be clear, he may be a lovely bloke with all kinds of personal virtues, but he’s displayed a raft of political weaknesses – weak proposals, weak analysis, weak support, weak tactics, appallingly weak PR. (Calling the Leader of the Opposition a f***ing c*** – what exactly was that meant to achieve?)

The US has been obstructing the expansion of the UNSC’s membership for years because it is too weak to deal with more powers. Now, Kerry accuses Russia of obstructionism because it does not follow the US’s lead regarding Syria meaning the US has become so weak it can no longer deal with just four other powers, two of which are allies and one of those a lapdog. What do Obama and Kerry want? That no country oppose them, ever? Is that what they mean by leadership, credibility, and the identity of Americans? Is that what the US has become, that which is never opposed?

By the way, the US congress is out on vacations, so somebody else is going to have to control these guys.

Milliband’s done Britain a great service

He has sacrificed the Syrian people on the altar of short-term expediency. I don’t care about the rationalisations; if he had got behind the motion, it would have carried. If trying to undermine Cameron is more important to Milliband than saving lives, then yes, he is a f—ing c–t.

to stop the rush to war

A couple of threads ago people were so keen to argue that the pre-war South was in a constant state of war against its enslaved population, which, in part, justified the North’s actions in the Civil War. And here we have a situation where the Syrian government is, quite literally, at war with its own people, but suddenly we can’t pay any attention to that. There can be no rush to war, because there’s already war, and has been for two years – but we can’t say that. We must at all costs maintain the current peaceful butchery. As long as all the victims are filthy foreigners, there’s really nothing to see here.

I find it disgusting.

“Calling the Leader of the Opposition a f***ing c*** – what exactly was that meant to achieve?”

It reminds us that our political leaders are a bunch of thugs. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. Cameron was a member of the sinister ‘Bullingdon Club’ street gang (who would undoubtedly have spent some time doing time had he not been so rich), and Nick Clegg, of course, is a convicted arsonist (!). They talk like thugs because they ARE thugs.

Of course this shouldn’t cast into doubt their sincerity when it comes to saving Syria. That goes without saying.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/sep/02/bullingdon-club-david-cameron-riots

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7003100.stm

Salem, you’re suffering from the logic of “We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do that.” You have no plan of what to do to stop further chemical attacks, you have no plan what to do if the current government falls, you have no evidence that the rebels will be any better than the current regime (and given that al Queda is one of the rebel factions, evidence that they’ll be worse). All you have is your hysterical reaction that you parade around like it’s actual moral rectitude. Clearly you are too young to remember the lead-up to the Iraq War, but we’re not. We’ve heard it all before.

It’s interesting that the post opposes equally violence of states against states (war) and of populations against their states (revolution) but says nothing about the violence of states against their populations (law enforcement). Is this also opposed or does it fall into a separate consequentialist category of violence whose overall effects are positive?

I simply don’t believe that if European children were being gassed and burned alive, that so many would be so sanguine.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=picasso+guernica&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=wSchUu_vKcnasgaNnICQAQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1092&bih=538

fool.

As best as we can determine from what Tom Friedman has written already, the internet and big data allow us today to live in the best of all possible worlds. Inside of one or two Friedman units, we’ll know if his current conclusions are apropos to today’s circumstances, although, to the best of our knowledge, we cannot be assured of that

“Frankly I am disgusted by Milliband’s vacillation, cowardice and pettiness, and I had hoped to see similar condemnations here.”

Whatever words one might choose to describe Milliband standing up to the Americans (let’s not forget, the most powerful military force the world has ever seen, with political/financial power almost to match) ‘cowardice’ is not necessarily the first one that would spring to mind.

Obviously with the charges of ‘vacillation’ and ‘pettiness’ you are on stronger ground.

Someone above asked whether we’d recognize an actually just war (my term, not theirs) if it came along. In all seriousness, I suspect that one of the signs would be that many of the usual voices for war would be against it.

I used to be a lot more in favor of humanitarian intervention than I am now, and this site has a lot to do with the change. :) I’ve become convinced that no quantity of good intentions or actual need on the ground exempts us from having to answer questions like these:

Who are we going to support? Unless we’re proposing at the outset to set up an indefinite occupation, we’ll have to be backing some faction. Who are they? Why should we favor them? What specific reasons do we have for believing that they can govern, and what will we do if they can’t?

Republicans obsess over cutting spending that does needy people any good, and far too many Democrats go along. Every scrap of spending we put into anything intended to help people with real needs will face demands for offsets. Therefore, we have to have a solid figure for the costs of the whole operation and a plan for what we wish to sacrifice here at home and elsewhere in the world to make it possible. What are the likely costs? What are the costs of contingencies covering all the foreseeable escalations and complications? What are we doing with that money now? Is the likely gain worth the likely losses?

(It’s disgusting and immoral that we should have to ask such complications. Blame both the Republicans who go for it and the Democrats who let them. Short of mind control rays, this is a reality we have to take into account.)

Who will lead our part of the show? Since we don’t punish violators of human rights, what reason do we have to believe there won’t be more horror shows of torture and slaughter coming from us? Who will administer the long-term presence we’ll inevitably have there? What reasons do we have to believe they’ll do more good than harm?

I propose the USA declares war on Syria, conquers it, declares it the 51th state of the USA (that then becomes USW) and grants consequently citizienship to all Syrians.

If you think that this proposal is stupid , the question is why?
If the USA wants to protect Syrians’s human rights, those rights basically are the same as citizenship rights; the only reason not to annect Syria is to give them less rights.
This includes the right of not living in a theocracy, which is somehow opposed to the right of self determination .

Anything less than conquest and annexation is neocolonialism, if you think of it.

@Roger gathmam 137

Plus, WW2 was a war of annihilation of the opponent.

The prohibition against biochemical weapons and nuclear weapons is curious. It says, “It is okay to kill, just don’t use biochemical or nuclear weapons.” Of course, it really isn’t okay to kill, except in self-defense. But then, shouldn’t it be okay to use chemical weapons or nukes in self-defense? If that’s what works to keep yourself alive, right? Assad would probably claim self-defense. Maybe Western imperialists should say, “He’s only using them in self-defense. Let him gas all the kids he wants to, and we’ll open trade negotiations with him later.”

Less snarky and more serious version of the above: that may be why there’s traditionally a difference between attacking combatants and attacking noncombatants. Because the combatants are attacking you back, or might do so in the future. WMDs (a loaded term, but not completely devoid of meaning) by their nature kill noncombatants along with the combatants.

In fact it *is* possible to kill discriminately — depending on what weapons you use.

Chris @ 144

Kids is a great point, but why is it OK to kill kids with a missile or bomb, but not to kill them with sarin gas?

Chris @ 145

Give an example of a long distance military strike (using artillery, aircraft, or cruise missiles) where no innocents were killed. Just one. I’ll wait.

@chris
But is it possible to win a war without killing indiscriminately ?
And what’s the point of waging a war without trying to win it?

This is what Philip Hammond, defense secretary , has to say:

“It is a difficult time for our armed forces, having prepared to go into this action, to then be stood down and have to watch while the US acts alone or perhaps the US acts with France.”

“It’s certainly a reversal of the usual position and it will be an uncomfortable place for many people in the British armed forces who are used to working alongside the Americans as an everyday, normal course of business.”’

Hammond sounds like his girlfriend, Francine, just stood him up and is describing how difficult and uncomfortable it is to watch her dancing with another guy, he was so used to her. I cannot imagine what a defense minister can say that would sound more pathetic.

@148: The House won’t give Obama anything he wants on the domestic front. War is another matter. Boehner, after all, didn’t demand a vote; he demanded “consultation.” (Pelosi’s position is “Bombs away!” Thank you, liberal Democrats.) I don’t get an overpowering anti-war vibe from the statements I’m reading from Senators, either:

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/29/20244932-lawmakers-say-obama-must-do-more-to-sell-intervention-in-syria?lite

If Obama can come up with anything that looks remotely like “evidence” it’s hard for me to see this bunch denying him a war he plainly wants. Would be pleased to be wrong. I agree that he doesn’t seem to want to give them the option.

Exactly what I was trying to say! Why a prohibition on biochem and nukes? We will be sending him the message that it is only okay to kill kids with bullets! Wrong way to go! Just let him gas the kids instead, and we won’t have these logical conundrums! Nuke the kids!

@156 — Good reads. The ban on biochem does seems very old-school. But then, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of my favorite movies. Then you realize that acting on nukes and biochem could be a long-term way to end ALL war. First we stop the biochem, then we stop the bullets. But thinking in this way, in other words thinking that international law should have some import (no matter how much the U.S. or any other country would be hypocritical to say so) means unfortunately drawing a line. From the logic exhibited in the discussions here and elsewhere, I expect the U.S. opinion polls to start swinging by the middle of next week in favor of a limited missile strike on some of Assad’s top assets. No ground invasion.

JQ @ 142

With all due respect, not having grown up in the U.S. may make it harder for you to grasp what geo is on about, your enviably cosmopolitan curriculum vitae notwithstanding. The bourgeoisie here is different — thanks largely to WWII, it’s an imperial bourgeoisie, and it often speaks a language that, for all its stylized pomps, is opaque to outsiders.

Keeping the wogs in their place may not always have a purely business justification, but it’s very dear even to those new age, new technology types here who delude themselves that they’re the true internationalists, and have nothing in common with the industrial dinosaurs of our past.

We native contrarians hear the subtext, and find it appalling. Others may need to employ an analogy — perhaps that of the UK in its glory days would do the trick. I don’t really expect you to take my word for this, but do at least consider it.

Layman #159, Then the answer is, “If you tell someone that we shouldn’t kill people with guns, that doesn’t mean that it is okay to kill people with knives.”

John@142: The financial sector clearly didn’t like Dodd-Frank in its original form, and wouldn’t like the prospect of Elizabeth Warren as Treasury Secretary. It is, however, prepared to go to the wall to oppose either of these, while it is reluctant to do anything more than murmur discontentedly about the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Similarly with the insurance industry and single-payer; the energy industry and leaving oil in the ground or putting up with nationalist reformers like Mossadegh; or the defense industry at the prospect of the US firmly and permanently committing itself to obey international law and renounce unilateral military intervention. “Capitalists in general” don’t deliberate on specific policies, calculate the costs and benefits to the class as a whole, and then unite to support or oppose the policy. They fight like hell for individual policies they consider vital, and generally keep mum about policies other big players consider vital, unless things get way out of hand, as in 1968, when a group of business heavyweights visited Lyndon Johnson and told him to bring the troops home, to damp out all this loose talk about “revolution” they were hearing.

They entrust the management of their common interests (the ones I mentioned @136 under the heading of “favorable investment climate”) to the state, on the understanding that if the state slacks off and allows, say, Vietnam, Cuba, or Nicaragua to demonstrate that successful economic development is possible under nationalist auspices, without allowing a whip hand to foreign investors, thus perhaps encouraging similar inconvenient notions in more important neighboring countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina, then “capitalists in general” will remind the state of its responsibilities by making the US economy scream.

In 2001, neither business nor anyone else opposed the blind spasm of retaliation; but in Iraq, there were substantial economic interests at stake: if all had gone as planned, Iran would have been destabilized, and the second and third largest oil-producing countries would also have been in the American pocket. Not to mention the demonstration effect of making postwar Iraq an “investors’ paradise,” to which considerably more planning and effort was devoted than to constructing democracy.

Foreign policy, even if it has a single, identifiable fundamental purpose, as I’ve argued, is complex; and the military is a half-trillion-dollar bureaucracy with considerable inertia or momentum of its own. The State Department, though traditionally presided over by a Wall Street lawyer, is home to many large egos with Big Ideas of their own. There isn’t literally a centralized executive committee; I tried to make clear that I preferred Chomsky’s more careful model of foreign policy, based on the notion of fundamental constraints, to Marx’s offhand phrase implying some kind of explicit coordination between business and government.

Sorry all this blathering of mine, across many threads, has made so little impression on you. I’ll try to give it a rest in future.

@161

I think you’ve got it backwards. Having allowed your neighbor to kill dozens of children with knives, your shocked to learn he’s now doing it with guns. Something must be done!

Salem @121
“I find it disgusting”

The question is whether the limited action being considered will actually do any good, or whether anything short of a *major* operation for which there is no political support anywhere, will do any good. (See R Gathman above). I don’t know but have severe doubts.

@168

I think you’re arguing a false position. The US has made it clear they contemplate no action which would have the effect preventing Assad from killing more children with chemical weapons. They’re just sending him a message of displeasure; one which will not harm Assad but which will almost certainly kill people who had nothing to do with the use of chemical weapons. Isn’t that right?

@172

They’re sending a message. That’s what they’ve been saying for days…

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/daily-rundown/52863893

@173 – That report says the reverse of your statement: the U.S. plans “a limited strike aimed at sending a message to Bashar al Assad and the Syrian regime not to launch any more chemical weapons”. What you want is a strike that directly hits the chemical weapons? Hitting them directly could release the chemicals, and it is unlikely that the locations are known.

ronan@130
Deborah Avant’s post at TheMonkeyCage is interesting if a bit vague; also the comment by someone who suggests referral to the ICC.

geo @174: great quote.

Late here. Signing off.

For the We must do something, PEOPLE ARE DYING!! crowd, here’s a rather pedestrian thought:

(Speaking of which: when it is gravely pronounced that “all options are on the table”, why is it that conceding just a bit to your “enemy” is not one of those options? And that is a rhetorical question.)

“Just to add to the point I made a while ago, that this is the most perfect example of “picking winners”, which if possible, would make Tim W’s well-known position on industrial subsidies hard to fathom.”

It is indeed exactly the same problem. Some military interventions work, others do not (for some given value of “work”). So with industrial subsidies.

The thing is that those markets things work rather well in the industrial sense. But we’ve tried the free market thing in military matters and very much did not like the results (Wars of the Roses, 100 Year War etc). So we’re left, in the military field, with having to pick those winners through the political system: something that fortunately we don’t have to do in the industrial.

Daniel at 129 (bringing up Guernica):

I’m willing to bet most on CT approve of the International Brigades, which makes my point nicely. But I won’t call you a fool.

FC @ 167:

I quite agree with you. I don’t expect a limited action to do much good. But military action has a logic of its own. I hope we get a no-fly zone and strikes on certain military installations, then destruction of Assad’s Air Force and air defences to enforce the no-fly zone, and so on, until US air power is being used to destroy their heavy armour and artillery. If Obama just fires a few missiles and goes home, I’ll be very disappointed. This is why I think Britain pulling out is so disastrous.

js @ 179:

What you seem to be missing is that the public don’t have policy control. We only get to choose from the menu politicians set – or even more narrowly, post-ratify/condemn whatever action was taken. My options are Ed “Pontius Pilate” Milliband and David Cameron, who, whatever his flaws, is trying to do the right thing.

“I’m willing to bet most on CT approve of the International Brigades, which makes my point nicely”. If you actually look at whose side the UK was on in the Spanish Civil War (de facto) it doesn’t really make your point at all.

“I don’t expect a limited action to do much good.”

Or any good.

“I hope we get a no-fly zone ”

No-fly zone, meaning of course, only a no-fly zone for Syrians. The Americans and French will be allowed to continue to fly wherever they want.

“I hope we get….strikes on certain military installations”.

Killing and maiming the men in them.

“until US air power is being used to destroy their heavy armour and artillery”.

And the Syrians who are manning this artillery and heavy armour, and whichever civilians ‘get in the way’ of these ‘surgical strikes’.

“If Obama just fires a few missiles and goes home, I’ll be very disappointed. ”

You poor man. Would you like a cookie?

Oops – sb keeping my country out of it. (Will make sense when previous comment’s modded.)

@175

Precisely, a strike which will not prevent Assad from doing the same thing again. We’re sending a telegram, one which just happens to kill people along the way.

The calculation, if there is one, is that by killing some innocents ourselves, we’ll discourage but not prevent another chemical attack; and that even in the unlikely event the discouragement takes, we’ll leave Assad free to kill innocents by other means. Is that what you’re signing up for?

Ronan–thks for the link to the Braumoeller. will take a look.

when it’s Arab children being blown to smithereens, suddenly neutrality looks very attractive around here

Is anyone advocating neutrality? Is anyone saying that they’re just fine with the situation in Syria? I think you’ll find that what most people are saying is that the proposed intervention would be a very bad idea because it would predictably make matters worse. There is plenty that the West – and Britain in particular – could do to make the situation better; talking as if all possible solutions grow out of the barrel of a gun is both stupid in itself and an encouragement to stupidity in others.

And indeed most CTers likely think was a bad thing, and have sympathy for the International Brigades–

So you’re commenting from Aleppo, then, during a brief moment when both the electricity and internet is working?

If not, grow the fuck up.

Bruce Wilder @ 195

This is a remarkably salient indication of the breakdown of American political institutions.

Remarkable, yes, if we were innocent enough to expect something better at the outset. But it’s true, I think, that if everyone who mattered had clung to a sense of civic responsibility, despite its obvious disadvantages, and continued to do his duty, maybe what now seems a tragically misplaced confidence in Realpolitik might have been justified, at least to the extent that we’d have been able to muddle our way through the changes that occur naturally in history without destroying the lives of more than a minimum number of hapless bystanders.

As you often point out, that isn’t what happened. What happened is that the idea of duty got chucked overboard, and pretty much everybody with any ambition at all began to fancy himself a ruthless predator. How far on the moral scale is Larry Ellison — or Barack Obama, for that matter — above Gordon Gecko? It’s a game, get it? And screw all you losers.

This won’t do; it won’t do at all. There’s no sense telling anybody in a silk suit that, of course. As in past episodes of powerful forgetfulness they’ll have to discover it for themselves. The modern age seems to have provided no end of opportunities to marvel at a world gone mad, so predicting that this particular episode is the final act is chancy at best. It does seem awfully weird, though, to watch the President row his way through all the standard platitudes, half truths, euphemisms, and outright misrepresentations of known fact in yet another sad attempt to justify bombing a squalid civil war in the Middle East, without even once acknowledging that not only have we been there and done that already, but that we also bear a significant responsibility for creating the mess that he now proposes bombing.

Orwell spoke as clearly about this as anyone probably could, and it didn’t help a bit, except maybe with our sense of irony. Whence cometh our help? may be a naive question these days, but it’s the only one I can think of at the moment to ask.

We know more or less the parameters of what the regime wants out of a negotitated settlement

http://qifanabki.com/2013/06/17/a-compromise-in-syria-the-regimes-view/

And we know that even in the possibility of a complete victory for the oppossition they *dont* have the ability to run the country. So do the US et al push for it now, or 10 years down the line after bleeding eachother in Syria?

@John Quiggin :

> Suppose they hadn’t. Presumably, the French would have left sooner or later,
> same as everywhere else*, and Vietnam, along with the rest of Indo-China, would
> now have a capitalist economy, probably with quasi-democratic
> governments dominated by a self-selecting oligarchy. But three or four
> million people who died in the process would still be alive, or at least would
> have lived a bit longer.

The problem with counter-factual history is that it rests on too many assumptions. Your analysis is, by no means and in no way, robust and you know that. For all you know, the French may have used Vietnam as a base to attack an oil rich country such as Indonesia.

A non-violent revolution would have been ideal for Vietnam but in some countries, non-violence/civil disobedience doesn’t seem to easily take root. e.g. Syria, Iran, Iraq and many others. There are, I believe, cultural aspects to it. Non-violent protest took shape most famously in India. And that is not a coincidence. This is very likely due to Hindu culture.

Re: There are, I believe, cultural aspects to it. Non-violent protest took shape most famously in India. And that is not a coincidence. This is very likely due to Hindu culture.

wtf? This is arguably the dumbest thing I’ve seen today (and that includes listening to celebrity gossip on the radio) and reads like a parody of witless Hollywood Hinduism.

1) Nonviolent resistance ‘succeeded’ in India (and it wasn’t that nonviolent- just ask the various Muslim and Hindu victims of partition) because Britain had been terminally exhausted by fighting the Germans and Japanese, and gearing up to defend against the Soviets, and weren’t in any position to put down a massive insurrection involving a country of hundreds of millions of people. Maybe they could make some efforts in the smaller colonies like Malaysia or Kenya, but there was *no* way they were ready to fight a war in India.

2) Hindus have a long history of war against other Hindus, and against Muslims, going back, well, as far back as we can tell. Take a look at the Marathas, or the Rajputs, or the Jats, or the Gurkhas, sometime, just to take the most notable early modern examples. One of the reasons the British were able to take over the subcontinent so easily was by opportunistically intervening in succession struggles, civil wars, etc. that were going on around them.

3) ‘Hindu culture’ can very comfortably fit together with justifications of warfare (as well as plenty of other violent behaviour, whether moral or immoral). One of their most popular *holy texts* is an inspiration pep-talk given by one of their gods to a legendary hero on the eve of a battle.

4) Indians did violently resist the British, several times in the 19th century, maybe most famously in Tamil Nadu in 1806 and then across the Gangetic plain in 1857. While both those revolts were theoretically ‘in the name of’ Muslim sovereigns, they involved a lot of Hindu soldiers, and in both cases were at least partly motivated by Hindu religious sentiments that they felt had been offended.

The question is – was non-violent resistance in India at least partly due to Hindu culture? I think the answer is ‘Yes’. The word ‘ahimsa’ is from Sanskrit.

> wtf? This is arguably the dumbest thing I’ve seen today (and that includes listening
> to celebrity gossip on the radio) and reads like a parody of witless
> Hollywood Hinduism.
Celebrity gossip can do this to you brain? WTH? You are fixating too much on the word ‘Hindu’. The position being advanced is based on a new conceptualization of the idea of ‘Hinduism’. I basically don’t consider Hinduism outside of a modern institutional context Hinduism at all. So any examples prior to 1947 are, basically, useless for you to point out to me. If it helps, substitute the word ‘Westernized Hindus’ when you think of the term ‘Hindus’. You don’t hate the Hare Krishnas, do you? Do you think they are genocidal maniacs? Or do you?

Anyway, you can’t just simply go full tilt at me because you simply disagree with one little word. Since there is such massive disagreement, just forget that I even used that word. For ‘Hindu’, substitute the word ‘Indian’ if that helps.

> 1) Nonviolent resistance ‘succeeded’ in India (and it wasn’t that nonviolent-
> just ask the various Muslim and Hindu victims of partition) because Britain
> had been terminally exhausted by fighting the Germans and Japanese, and
> gearing up to defend against the Soviets, and weren’t in any position to put
> down a massive insurrection involving a country of hundreds of millions of people.
Actually, Britain’s “terminal exhaustion”, as you put it, played a minor (but significant) role. The primary driver of Indian independence *was* nonviolent resistance. This nonviolent resistance was never subjected to genocidal tactics. The British did have a sense of fair play in the way they governed their provinces.

I don’t have the time to provide extensive comments on the other items you bring up. Some brief remarks.

> 2) Hindus have a long history of war against other Hindus, and against Muslims,
> going back, well, as far back as we can tell. Take a look at the Marathas, or
> the Rajputs, or the Jats, or the Gurkhas, sometime, just to take the most notable
> early modern examples. One of the reasons the British were able to take over
> the subcontinent so easily was by opportunistically intervening in
> succession struggles, civil wars, etc. that were going on around them.
Yeah, we all know that. But how have war-mongering have the Hindus of Fiji been? Or the ones in Jamaica? In the last six decades, Hinduism has virtually no influence on the public policy of any country except perhaps India. And even India can hardly be said to be a country with any more global ambition than, say, Australia.

> 3) ‘Hindu culture’ can very comfortably fit together with justifications of
> warfare (as well as plenty of other violent behaviour, whether moral or
> immoral). One of their most popular *holy texts* is an inspiration pep-talk given
> by one of their gods to a legendary hero on the eve of a battle.
Yeah, we all know that too. The Gita may be a holy text (It is a pre-modern text that is best classified as Iron Age Fiction) but nobody ever brings it up as justification for war. The fact is that even in America, the Bible is never brought up as justification for war. It is the beliefs of the people who believe in the Bible and their beliefs in the geographical origins of their religion that makes them so war-mongering. The Hindus have all their holy land securely bound up in one country and so this problem basically does not arise.

> 4) Indians did violently resist the British, several times in the 19th century,
> maybe most famously in Tamil Nadu in 1806 and then across the Gangetic plain
> in 1857. While both those revolts were theoretically ‘in the name of’
> Muslim sovereigns, they involved a lot of Hindu soldiers, and in both cases
> were at least partly motivated by Hindu religious sentiments that they felt had
> been offended.
Yeah, we know that too. It is, however, irrelevant to the matter under discussion.

Now this seems the right idea

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2013/mena/syria-statement.aspx

“Whether or not the U.S. chooses to launch a military offensive, its responsibility should be to try to optimize chances of a diplomatic breakthrough. This requires a two-fold effort lacking to date: developing a realistic compromise political offer as well as genuinely reaching out to both Russia and Iran in a manner capable of eliciting their interest – rather than investing in a prolonged conflict that has a seemingly bottomless capacity to escalate. “

Re: Yeah, we know that too. It is, however, irrelevant to the matter under discussion.

It’s not irrelevant at all. If your claim is “Hinduism naturally conduces towards nonviolent resistance, and that’s why Resistance Movement #4 was nonviolent”, then it rather weakens your case if Resistance Movements #1,#2, and 3# were not, and the only reason we remember the last one is because it happened (for a variety of reasons) to succeed.

Re: The word ‘ahimsa’ is from Sanskrit.

And there are concepts of pacifist/quietist approaches in Christianity, Islam and Buddhism too, as well as probably other religions, which no doubt have there own terms for it. I’m not sure how that makes Hinduism unique here.

Re: The Hindus have all their holy land securely bound up in one country and so this problem basically does not arise.

Not really, a lot of it is in Pakistan (and they have a few very holy sites in Tibet as well, which isn’t really politically relevant). The right-wing Hindu neofascists have been complaining, pretty much since 1947, how “the banks of the Indus, where the Vedas were composed” aren’t in India and ought to be. Violent irredentism is *absolutely a thing* on the Hindu far right.

Re: The fact is that even in America, the Bible is never brought up as justification for war.

Plenty of evangelical preachers use the Bible (specifically, the supposed biblical prophecies about Israel’s borders) as justifications for promoting middle east wars, all the time.

I’m embarrassed to say that despite having minored in history as an undergrad (in the 70s) I had never heard of the war until I read Lily Tuck’s novel.

How about: Had not Paraguay distracted Brazil and Argentina from one another with its total destruction, those two powers would have engaged in a much more devastating war?

>What I am saying is that India’s only problems are with Pakistan
What I am saying is that India’s only problems are with Pakistan. Pardon me. I quote myself. :) India’s only problems in terms of “religious sites” are with Pakistan. Prominent policy makers almost never bring up the fact that Mount Kailash is in Tibet and therefore, Tibet/China deserves a military intervention from India.

The point is that a lot is foisted on to the “need for military action” against country X once there is already an ongoing current of opinion for it.

The Syrian affair is much more about the Iran than is often realized. Much evidence indicates that Iran is very close to a nuclear weapon. Natanz and Qom, these are the proximate catalysts of the U.S. threatening of Syria.