The Hawks Finally Got Their War With Iran
Guess what comes next...
In the Washington where I came up, advocating for the use of state power to murder others—or occupy their lands—is an intellectual game that you play to build your career.
This is not hyperbole.
Strip out the fuzzy rhetoric about interests, stability, order, or leadership and this is what you are left with. This is what foreign policy wonks are doing with their words.
Usually, the key to such a game is plausibly appearing to advocate for our security, not their death, even if you think the latter is necessary for the former. A sophisticate does not just make a frontal argument to flagrantly attack or invade a place. That would be impolitic.
Instead, the art of wrapping barbarism in civility entails pushing to create conditions that give rise to states of exception—violent situations necessitating violent responses. You dilute accountability for sowing seeds of harm by either claiming that the specter of militarized violence will lead to its opposite (“deterrence”), or that whatever violence you say is necessary is actually just a down payment on a better world. Step 1, murder. Step 2 , something something. Step 3, threat eliminated!
Wonks play the game this way for any number of reasons. It’s what socially acceptable and you have to go along to get along. You were trained to think of international relations as a dark-hearted enterprise that requires a dark heart in kind (that is, “there is no alternative”). And at a cosmic level, packaging your preference for guns and bombs in these ways allows you to believe that your soul is not at risk. If you use the right words or follow the appropriate steps, you can push for murdering your fellow man while clinging to a claim of clean conscience.