This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Trump has given a "red line" to Iran about killing protestors, but we still aren't seeing US involvement as deaths move into the thousands, reportedly. If the regime follows through with its claims, it will be executing many if not most of the thousands it has arrested.
I have an essay on my view that the US/West/Israel should clearly intervene in the Transnational Thursday thread, but the Culture War dynamics strike me as interesting in that it's not really Culture War Classic material. Traditionally, the Left has been soft on Iran and the Right has been hawkish. Iran has tried to kill Trump and Trump officials, as revenge for the Soleimani assassination.
There's a strong anti-interventionist Right and Left. During the 12-Day War, Trump went from tweeting about regime change, to abruptly demanding cessation of hostilities, which Israel and Iran complied with. (I think had the war continued the regime would already have fallen, given how easily Israel was bombing them.) This is something that's already kicked off, unlike the Maduro rendition. My understanding is that action got more popular in the polls having succeeded, though it's an open question what Venezuela's fate will be.
The Right strongly criticized Obama for declaring a red line in Syria, and then backing off. In hindsight, I think it would have been correct to have intervened against Assad. Here, I think there's a clear cost-benefit analysis case, whether you care about the plight of the Iranian people or the amoral realist power dynamics for America First Global Superpower Edition.
Trump really needs to intervene militarily here now. Destroy the Revolutionary Guards headquarters and take out their top brass. This minimizes deaths of Iranian people. Falsely telling the Iranian people that he'd help so they risk their lives and die only for Trump to later back out and allow the regime to continue would be an abject moral failure.
If Trump can properly fix Venezuela, Iran and Cuba by replacing their regimes with sane governments he'll genuinely deserve the Nobel peace prize.
Don't tempt him further! :D
More options
Context Copy link
The Iranian government is approximately sane. They need their religious fervor in order to (1) sustain their already low TFR, (2) incentivize high births among the intelligent [who otherwise would leave or not have so many kids], and (3) encourage bravery among the men who will certainly be dying against Israel this century. It doesn’t hurt that (4) it also promotes alliances with other Muslims in the region. Without Islam, Arabs would be a lot less resistant to the idea of America and Israel completely destroying them. If you were dictator of Iran and had the best interest of Iranians at heart, IMO you would be forced to retain the religious component of their governance, even without considering the huge gains in life satisfaction that come with religiosity. (And even the veil — women having to wear a modest veil likely increases their happiness given the longterm problems that come with the culture of appearance-obsession that plagues Western women).
The idea that “secularism” is sane for Iran is silly. The idea that democracy is remotely viable should be disproven per the long history of America interfering with democracies.
You're seriously arguing that the Iranians are happier with Shia fundamentalism imposed upon them? Bold I must say. Why all the mass protests over the years I wonder? (Including some specifically over veiling.)
Are you aware that Iran already has a famously high rate of plastic surgery?
Are you aware Iran has a famously high rate of brain drain?
Are you aware the Islamic government actually instituted policies to decrease the TFR and increase female education? (Whoops.)
Are you aware that Persians are not Arabs?
Are you aware that the extremist version of Shia Islam the Iranian Islamic regime adheres to increases conflict with basically all of its Sunni neighbors?
"Approximately" is doing a hell of a lot of work in the "approximately sane" evaluation.
Why all the mass protests in America or France? This signals that people have opinions, it isn’t a valid indicator of predicted happiness of social policies. I mean, toddlers and teenagers protest everything from authority, but they seldom are able to predict the longterm outcome of their desired proposals. This is the sin of democracy, that people mistake mass opinion for predictive ability.
Are you aware that Iran has half our suicide rate, one eighth of our drug overdose rate, a heavily subsidized and expansive healthcare system, and one third our intentional homicide rate? Probably not. Perhaps you’ll accuse them of cooking the books.
Yes, hence why I mentioned it: this doesn’t apply to the religious cohort, which is why they have an interest in maintaining their religious “extremism”. Otherwise they will all leave.
Of course but when it comes to the risk that Israel poses in the region, you can’t ignore that Iran being Islamic is helpful for speaking with other Islamic nations.
You just obviously have no idea what you're talking about when you try to directly compare protests in the US or even France to those in Iran, before now or these ones. The dynamics are totally different when it's an actual police state.
Ah, this is the "Maduro is the true conservative" perspective. Do you know what "cherry picking" is?
They have hyperinflation ffs, among many other critical economic failures. Trying to find a few metrics where Iran might have a good stat doesn't overturn the obvious reality that it's a shithole country because it's been held back by economically illiterate leadership for nearly 50 years.
Ahahahahahaha. Iran has been and continues to be hated and feared by nearly all of its Sunni neighbors. You're trying to cherry pick an instance of slightly improved relations with the Saudis to defend the insane proposition that Iran's version of Shia Islam makes it easier to deal with its Sunni neighbors. Gulf Arab states have collaborated with the US and Israel against Iran.
Did you know that Iran and the Taliban have nearly gone to war a time or two?
What's next? ISIS has an easy time dealing with other Islamic states thanks to Islam?
Protestant and Catholic countries have always had better relations due to Christianity as a commonality?
These are pretty significant indicators. Especially if we want to “free” an “oppressed” population and deliver them American-Grade™️ Values. If our values lead to worse results for the average person than the average person in Iran, we should rethink our ability to improve other nations and instead consider why we’re doing so poorly. Their life expectancy is also tied with ours (and at a better trajectory) and they have half the obesity. The question of course is what they would look like without sanctions, with an extra 1 trillion.
The proposition is that, while an Islamic Iran has something important in common with its Muslim neighbors, a non-Islamic Iran would lose that card altogether and could never leave pariah status. This may not be a factor today but it may be a factor in the future. Consider from the Atlantic Council —
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/iran-saudi-arabia-china-deal-one-year/
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's not imposed upon them, it's home-grown. They chose it in 1979.
Are you aware of the basic facts of the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution?
Familiar with buyer's remorse?
Capable of understanding its' been nearly 50 years and the theocratic regime does not have democratic legitimacy, since it's an illiberal, sham democracy?
Sure, lots of Death-To-America rallies, lots of Westernized Iranians who hadn't fled (among others) getting killed. Basically consolidation of power. Worked, too.
They don't need democratic legitimacy. With most of the people they have religious legitimacy, and for the malcontents they have the sword.
They executed a lot of commies and other insufficiently Islamic co-revolutionaries. Lots of the country immediately regretted taking out the Shah. That was decades ago and things only got worse.
Ok, so you agree then that the present regime is imposing Shia theocracy on its populace?
This hasn't been true for a long time.
They're a Shia theocratic regime ruling over Shiites. No imposing necessary.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Being dead-set on making it certain that Iranian men will be dying against Israel within the century does not sound like a sane choice. Then again, gotta get rid of the excess men in a polygynist society somehow... unless...
The sane choice is to prepare for the inevitability of conflict with a regional power that is committed to warring against you, and in fact just assassinated a number of your scientists.
Signaling that you're developing nukes && that you want to wipe a particular neighboring power off the map is a great way to have your scientists assassinated. Could try not doing at least one of those.
"And then one day, for no reason at all, Israel started preparing for war against Iran..."
Israel has been trying to trick us into believing that Iran is years away from nuclear weapons for 30 years now. Iran opened itself to outside observers during the nuclear deal era. Meanwhile Israel has killed an almost inconceivable amount of women and children in Gaza while illegally stealing land in the West Bank. “And then one day, for no reason at all, Iran started preparing for war against Israel…”
Ah, yes, another one of those elaborate Jewish deceptions. If true, I would expect a sane government to not antagonize such a crafty people. Especially if you and your Muslim friends have a very poor century-long track record of destroying them.
For every ounce of commitment to warring against Muslims that Israel displays, there is tenfold commitment Muslims display to warring against Israel. The relationship between certainty of war with Israel and Muslim theocracy is exactly backwards from how you're attempting to portray it.
"Ah yes, another one of those elaborate Jewish deceptions..."
The reply said Israel, not Jews. And I've heard that Iran is on the verge of nukes for decades as well.
More options
Context Copy link
No? There's absolutely nothing elaborate about these "Jewish deceptions" (not the phrasing I'd use personally) at all. I could have whipped together the diagrams and "evidence" provided to the UN on this topic in MS paint with a five minute deadline, and even the Obama whitehouse made a version of it to make fun of Netanyahu. They've just been lying consistently on this topic because it is obviously in their national interest to have the US go in and take out one of their regional enemies without them having to do it themselves.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
But at least half of this is circular. Iran would not need to worry about being crushed by Israel and the US if they credibly overhauled themselves into an enlightenment-values democracy: Iran is viewed as a threat by the US and Israel because they're antisemitic religious fundamentalists. That only leaves 1) and 2), and even then 2) is somewhat defanged in that if Iran were not a fanatical dictatorship, fewer intelligent people would leave.
Sure, none of this means that Iran would suddenly be welcomed by the West with open arms overnight if it stopped being a Muslim dictatorship now. It may be that they've backed themselves into a sharia-shaped corner. But sanity alone cannot have gotten them in the position they are now, even if there are rational reasons to remain tyrannical fanatics once they've started behaving like tyrannical fanatics.
And the US wouldn't have had to worry about being attacked by Osama bin Ladin if we'd credibly overhauled ourselves into an Islamic theocracy. These are not reasonable things to ask.
Well, no. But that still makes coffee_enjoyer's argument that the Iranian government is "approximately sane" circular. They only get in their current situation by starting out sincerely mad (i.e. religious fanatics). Religious fanaticism is not a policy they adopted out of rational self-interest in the face of military threats that existed of their own accord; their preexisting religious fanaticism, rather, is the reason they became the target of such threats at all. Whether their fanaticism has "perks" which help it deal with the threats that the fanaticism has brought down upon them is neither here nor there.
None of this necessitates that there was ever a possible world where they spontaneously purge themselves of that mindset and negate the threats. (I do of course think there are relatively plausible timelines where Iran got increasingly secular and liberal in the 20th century instead of the pendulum swinging back - certainly they are more plausible than a timeline where 90s America spontaneously develops a love of sharia law - but that is not the point.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
America has interfered in democracies before, even in Iran before (1953). In Ukraine, we funded pro-EU news in the lead up to the coup of Yanukovych, which was an illegal coup where a mob forced the democratically-elected Yanukovych to flee and the procedure for legal impeachment was never followed. We supported this anti-democratic mob activity in Ukraine diplomatically. Chavez was elected and popular in Venezuela, and we tried to coup him in 2002. At the same time, we have committed ties to absolute monarchies, the polar opposite of “enlightenment-based democracies”, and indeed those countries are fine and thriving.
And Israel is not anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian? From a purely consequential standpoint it is the Israelis who have more blood on their hands. It is also Israel who attacked Iran first. Israel is also becoming more religious extremism, while Iran seems to be becoming less so.
The intelligent seculars will leave no matter what, as intelligent seculars around the world always try to leave for better countries. But the high TFR intelligent netionalist / religious families will stay.
I wasn't talking about a consequential standpoint at all, or indeed a moral plain. I meant that in plain, pragmatic terms, what happened was "Iran became ruled by fanatics who believe it is their holy duties to crush the Jews -> Israel viewed Iran as a threat -> the imams have a credible case that it's now necessary to keep the religious fervor up so that they have enough soldiers in case it comes to open existential war" - as distinct from "Israel becomes a threat to Iran for no articulate reason -> its government ponders a logical solution to this -> it decides to become a fanatical theocracy in order to motivate its soldiers in the event that it comes to open existential war".
In other words, I'm not saying that the US - or Israel - have some sort of inviolable taboo against antagonizing enlightenment-values democracies - I'm saying that their motives for antagonizing Iran in particular are downstream of the nature of the current regime and prevailing and ideology making it come across as a threat to the US and Israel. Therefore, in that particular case, removing those factors would have negated the basis for the tensions that Iran lives in fear of today.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Iran and Israel have adverse geopolitical interests. That isn’t going to change just because Iran isn’t being ruled by fanatics anymore. Iran having a government with popular support that actually has its shit together could very well turn out to be worse for Israel, especially in the long run. Israel probably knows this, and you would probably see an effort to break it into different countries by ethnic group the second the Islamic Republic is gone.
How so?
More options
Context Copy link
This is so obviously not true.
Israel and Iran do not have natural reasons to be rivals, let alone enemies. The Islamic regime chose for ideological reasons the foreign policy it did that frames Israel and the US as its major adversaries.
There’s three countries that have a shot at being the regional power that controls the Middle East: Israel, Iran and Turkey. That’s why they all hate each other! You notice that they weren’t constantly at each other’s throats back when Iraq was still a major military power.
Why did Iraq and Iran go to war in the 80s? What changed?
Does Turkey have a history of being a rival of Israel? What changed?
Why on earth did you leave out Saudi Arabia? Were they traditionally at odds with Iran? What changed?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
As far as Israel goes, it wouldn't even take that. All Iran needs to do is stop threatening and attacking Israel and they can easily end up in basically the same position as Egypt, Jordan, and even Saudi Arabia.
Israel haters (and we all know why they hate Israel so much) have this fantasy that Israel is actually expansionistic, but there's no reasonable basis for such a conclusion.
As far as the US goes, I doubt it would take that either. The US has dealings with non-democracies on a regular basis.
Iran could have been an oil-rich Turkey in a slightly different universe.
Iran went down on its current path because its democratically elected secular government expropriated BP, whereupon the UK and the US organised a revolution (quoth Wikipedia):
Do Iranians have any reason to believe that if they let a revolution/civil war happen, the first condition the US will impose on its chosen winner will not amount to giving back control of their oil plus 46 years of interest? If there is one thing revealed preference shows, it's that the one class of grudge the US never forgives or forgets are slights against allied petroleum corporations. It was a pretty open secret that the US hate-boner for Venezuela was rooted in how it likewise expropriated US petrocompanies, and Trump (who has a talent for blurting out things that were supposed to remain plausibly deniable in polite company) just abducted its president with his apparently only real demand being that he be given their oil.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
We seem to be watching enlightenment-values democracy slowly falling over, though. (Picking either one by itself is probably OK though).
If the next century is basically America receding from 'global interventionist superpower' to 'very rich but very disorganised country on a different continent', Europe mostly becoming a set of Muslim-minority secular-in-name-only states and Isreal having serious problems solving the disconnect between the Harethi and everyone else, then Iran's current strategy might look pretty smart.
That's a big 'if' of course but I'd give it maybe 40% odds?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If.
I don’t think he can do any of those things. At best, he can create power vacuums. Trying to actually replace a regime is the kind of blank-check commitment that he knows to avoid. No exit strategy.
More options
Context Copy link
Rather big assumption that protecting lives and well being of Iranian (or any other) people is what it is all about.
Well, this was US empire SOP at least since 1956 Hungarian revolt.
Real abject failure is when any literate person with basic awareness of 20/21st century history trusts US promises (and then faces another rugpull and backstab with sad Pikachu face).
More options
Context Copy link
Because all the PREVIOUS US interventions in the Middle East in general and Iran in particular have gone SO well.
You can argue we didn't intervene enough.
How much better off would the world be if Jimmy Carter hadn't been a leftist simp and he'd gone all in on keeping the Shah in power in 1979, instead of the Islamists and commies?
We should have done Operation Ajax 2.0 if anything.
I don't think rented mobs and planted newspaper articles would have prevented the Islamic Revolution. People seem to forget that the Shah still controlled the police and military in 1953, and the issue was that he didn't feel like he had the popular support to use them to take out Mossadeh. In 1979 he was deposed despite having that power tenfold and not being afraid to use it. Propaganda making the Ayatollah look bad wasn't going to stop that tidal wave.
He was actually afraid to use it.
The West told him to treat the opposition with kid gloves and facilitated Khomeini's return.
A mistake the current regime will not make.
Which is why we should bomb 'em I say.
Make it more of a fair fight.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Kuwait was a great success, in that the US achieved all its stated goals and Kuwait is today a rich, stable, pro-American state that acts as a crucial hub for US military operations in the Middle East. But Kuwait is also much easier to invade than Iran is.
You mean when we restored the House of al-Sabah, just deposed by Iraq? Sure, that worked out OK, but it was a much different sort of intervention, and part of a larger one which didn't go so well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Look, I understand that Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria were glorious boondoggles. But Iran is not just a American enemy (or heck, an Israeli one.) It's an incompetent regime. One that has run out of money and electricity and water. You can't shoot your way out of a drought. One way or another, Iran is going to explode. The calculus has shifted - not because of the CIA or Mossad, but because of nature. Regime change will happen regardless of what Americans do or do not do, so getting ahead of the curve and allying ourselves with the Iranians who have already endured and sacrificed so much is smart.
The Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Assad were not so short-sighted and stupid enough to run out of water. The mullahs of Iran and the IRGC are so incompetent they grow rice in the desert from water captured from dams they themselves built because they are stupid. They ignored the advice of their own scientists because of greed and that is why they are falling now - systematic incompetence on every level. Intervening now will save the world an Iranian refugee crisis down the line, far larger than the Syrian one.
Iraq actually went rather well by these standards. And it's still shit.
The Soviets were incompetent for 70 years. I mean, to the point of holding all of Ukraine and STILL not being able to feed themselves. Still took a leader not willing to massacre his way out to allow it to fall. The Iranian regime is still willing to massacre its way out.
Iraq's pretty fine.
More options
Context Copy link
Unless the Shia clerics can drink blood and summon rain, you can't kill your way out of having no water. The Islamic Republic has foolishly pushed themselves into a position where no amount of force will overcome its problems. It reminds me of Xerxes whipping the ocean for its insolence. One hundred million people living in a mountainous desert can't be denied water. Even the Soviets - hell, even the North Koreans and the Khmer Rouge - did not run out of water.
I can't overstate enough how incompetent you have to be to overlook this very obvious problem, of their own making. If the Iranian opposition starts getting denied water, they have literally nothing to lose but their lives - which their evil government is determined to do by dehydration and starvation. Just to make sure... you do know that humans require water to live, right?
The humanitarian catastrophe is already priced in: intervention is the difference between a impoverished but recovering democracy and an atrocity on par with the Great Leap Forward.
The Aral Sea begs to differ.
More options
Context Copy link
They don't have literally zero water. And killing indeed reduces demand, though it's unlikely they'll kill enough to make a dent.
So the government simply reserves what water it has for its security forces, and the dehydrated and starving people are easier to kill.
Note that the regime which did the Great Leap Forward is still in power.
More options
Context Copy link
North Korea has survived famines without a regime change, and they can't drink blood and summon rain.
A famine isn't a drought. People can go without food for a month, very uncomfortably. People without water for a month are dead.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Iraq is doing about as well as a non-GCC Arab country can do for now. Judged against its peers, it’s got good growth, a functioning economy with real median income having increased a lot in the last decade, and as a basket case of ethnic tensions between Sunni Arabs, Shias and Kurds it’s being vaguely held together with comparatively minimal violence.
In general though I agree with your point.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I am very seriously concerned that overtly intervening will cause the protest movement to lose face and legitimacy. Merely offering verbal support to a revolutionary movement and or even arming it generates less risk of creating an appearance that it is merely an American puppet regime than airstrikes or a ground intervention. Now admittedly this is a position I hold from ignorance, but we have reliable evidence such as outside polling showing that e.g. a majority of Iranians support US airstrikes against the regime, then I have not heard of it.
The fact that they are calling for a return of the Shah with a straight face is a pretty big sign that they already have no legitimacy.
How many Iranians are old enough to actually remember life under the Shah? It's all Boomer fairytales to those young enough to fight, like the 50's suburbs are to American NEETs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link