The Silence

One of the subjects I have come back to over and over since starting this blog is Iran. I have pointed out repeatedly that people have got to start paying attention to this or the whole world will pay. Today, there is a startling piece by Kevin Drum in the Washington Monthly. In it may be the answer on why so many are silent about Iran – and by extension, many other subjects.

So what is it that Beinart really wants from antiwar liberals? The obvious answer is found less in policy than in rhetoric: we need to engage more energetically with the war on terror and criticize illiberal regimes more harshly.

Maybe so. But this is something that's nagged at me for some time. On the one hand, I think Beinart is exactly right. For example, should I be more vocal in denouncing Iran? Sure. It's a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything I stand against. Of course I should speak out against them.

And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration's determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike. Only a naif would view criticism of Iran in a vacuum, without also seeing the way it will be used by an administration that has demonstrated time and again that it can't be trusted to act wisely.

So what to do? For the most part, I end up saying very little. And Beinart is right: there's a sense in which that betrays my own liberal ideals. But he's also wrong, because like it or not, my words — and those of other liberals — would end up being used to advance George Bush's distinctly illiberal ends. And I'm simply not willing to be a pawn in the Bush administration's latest marketing campaign.

So, is that the answer? Is that why so many are silent? They simply won't trust the administration? We have become so locked in political struggle that we can no longer put anything above politics?

I've pointed out before that unless the world shows a unified front to Iran, war becomes more likely, not less so. If the silence is politically based, it still leads to the same place. That we will all eventually pay for.