It was cathartic to write my last essay before the “Ask Me Anything” post that preceded my week away from the newsletter. Bluntly titled “Zero Cheers for Trump’s Regime Change War,” the post was fueled by anger at the advent of a new war in the Middle East, this time with the country of Iran. For those who agreed with me, my rant was appreciated. But others were perplexed. During the Biden administration, I had supported a fairly tough line in defense of Ukraine against Russia’s aggression. My position on Hamas’ bloody invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 was to express fatalistic support for Israeli self-defense (though this later curdled into disgusted pessimism with regard to Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the conflict).
With those positions fresh in the minds of subscribers, my impassioned opposition to the American and Israeli attack on Iran came as a surprise to some. If you’ve been reading me on foreign policy since I became a columnist at The Week, my response didn’t come as a shock. But those who’ve come to know my writing and thinking more recently feel somewhat at sea. Where is this coming from? How do I think about American foreign policy? Have I merely succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome, reflexively expressing disgusted opposition to anything the president does, even when I’d support the same actions if undertaken by just about any other commander in chief of either party?
Such questions came to a head last week in a Twitter exchange with center-right data researcher Zach Goldberg. It began with a sardonic tweet of mine expressing doubt that the Iranian people would rise up against their government when Israel is the country leading a military assault on the country. In response, Goldberg wanted to know why, in this and other tweets over the past week, I had expressed so much confidence that the war would end badly. Shouldn’t I display greater epistemic humility, sit back, and hope for the best? Unless I want Iran’s theocratic government to prevail, which Goldberg doesn’t assume I do, wouldn’t it be more responsible for me to pipe down and wait to see what happens?
That’s a fair criticism, and one I want to address in this post.
Why am I so hostile to the war Israel and the United States are waging against Iran—and so sure it will end badly? Don’t I recognize the loathsomeness of Iran’s government, how much it threatens its neighbors, and how thoroughly it sows instability across the Middle East?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Yet I still oppose the war and remain fairly certain it will end badly. (If I turn out to be wrong about that, I will happily admit and learn from it.) Some of my reasons for holding these views follow from the specifics of the second Trump administration. Others are motivated by my longstanding exasperation with certain assumptions of Washington’s foreign policy establishment. And then there is the most important consideration of all, which blends both (disdain for Trump’s team as well as leading figures in the DC think-tank world).
