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How should a conservative think about this regime-change war in Iran?
There are a handful of reasons conservatives will support it, even aside from partisan support for President Donald Trump.
First, conservatives understand that nationalism is necessary and patriotism is a virtue. We should love our country and support our troops.
KHAMENEI’S SECRET BUNKER UNDER TEHRAN DESTROYED BY ISRAELI MILITARY JET BOMBARDMENT
Second, conservatives reject moral relativism. What is true and good is not merely a subjective question, or the sort of thing that varies from culture to culture. Some things simply are evil, and an Islamic theocracy is one such thing.
Likewise, conservatives reject the third-worldism that hates white Christians and capitalism.
There’s also a conservative argument that it is healthy for a civilization to wage war against evil. Such a war clarifies moral questions, gives men an opportunity for bravery, creates heroes, and stokes patriotism.
But if we take conservatism to be a real habit of mind, grounded in insights and a sound anthropology, then the full weight of conservatism comes down against regime changes and wars of choice.
Change is bad
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence; “and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Of course this doesn’t mean we should never overthrow our government. No American can believe that. Jefferson was articulating a bit of wisdom grounded in humility: Overthrowing the current order, even when that order is rife with problems, typically makes things worse.
More broadly: Dramatic changes to complex systems always create unintended and unforeseen consequences, and those consequences are often very bad.
This isn’t merely a foreign policy view. This is something the conservative believes so deeply he may not say it out loud. It’s why he’s skeptical of grand new plans and revolutions, whether cultural, economic, or otherwise.
It’s not that we live in the best of all possible worlds, it’s that we live in a world more complex than we can imagine. Our power of reason is awesome, but humans trying to rearrange civilization are like amateurs tinkering with a home’s electrical system — there’s a high risk of disaster.
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya
Foreign policy is where this lesson often comes to bear. Consider our 21st Century regime-change wars.
In Afghanistan, we very quickly dethroned the Taliban, and then sunk into a 20-year occupation that ended in a humiliating and deadly retreat in 2021. Read the reports of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to see how that went.
We spent more than $9 billion to try and end narcotics trade and production in Afghanistan. This was a total failure. By 2018, Afghanistan was supplying more than 90% of the world’s opium.
We also failed to combat corruption, build up the rule of law, support a viable military, or build durable civil infrastructure in Afghanistan. When we left, we handed the country back over to the Taliban.
More than 2,400 American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen died in that two-decade undertaking.
The Iraq War, likewise, was quickly declared a success. Our military demolished Iraq’s, deposed Saddam Hussein, and soon arrested him. For a moment, we were, as the war’s champions predicted, greeted as liberators. Mission Accomplished!
But then things spiraled way down. The primary premise for the war, that Saddam was about to use “weapons of mass destruction,” proved false. The government we stood up collapsed. Our efforts to import Madison democracy failed, and in the vacuum terrorism blossomed and then spread throughout the region.
Many experts argue that the war created ISIS, which then brought hell on the region for many years.
Domestically, the war became incredibly unpopular, and led to the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Barack Obama’s election in 2008.
Iraq today is one of the worst places on the planet to live. Corruption is the defining trait of the government. The electrical system is a disaster, and last year there was a nation-wide blackout, cutting off all air conditioning during deadly heat.
Thousands and thousands died from the war. According to our official count, 4,431 American forces were killed, and many more were permanently disabled. Thousands of Iraqi civilians were also killed, which points towards the moral harms of war: Young men and women were forced to become killers.
Not learning the lesson, President Obama launched a regime-change war in Libya in 2011. In his 2012 re-election, Obama was campaigning on his success there until terrorists stormed and took over the State Department compound in Benghazi.
Deposing dictator Moammar Gadhafi created a power vacuum terrorist and extremist elements soon filled. Gadhafi had controlled a massive stockpile of weapons, including missile launchers. Our efforts there ensured that these would fall into the worst possible hands.
The chaos and terrorism wasn’t contained by Libya’s borders, and it has since spread across much of the continent. Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Chad, Sudan, and Gabon have all experienced coups as aftershocks of that regime-change war. That war still has evil reverberations today.
It turns out that deposing dictators doesn’t necessarily make the world a better place.
Iran
Iran is an Islamic theocracy that has declared “Death to America” as a national goal, has been bankrolling terrorist governments and groups for decades, and has been building a nuclear weapons program.
The government oppresses its people and murders those who object. This is obviously an evil regime. Destroying its military capabilities will be a good thing, and many bad guys in the region will suffer if their patron is levelled.
The U.S. and Israeli forces have instantly had massive successes. We killed Ayatollah Khamenei right away along with much of the military leadership. We have destroyed enough of Iran’s anti-aircraft weaponry to claim “air supremacy” over the country, and we sunk one of their warships in the Indian Ocean.
But Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya also began with quick, decisive military victories. The conservative ought to expect plenty of pitfalls ahead.
The stated timeline of the war has rapidly grown in just a few days. Originally it was going to last a few days, and now the administration says it will be months.
Three U.S. fighter jets were shot down by friendly fire, and are expending munitions rapidly. At least six American soldiers were killed in the first days of the war.
A school in southern Iran was destroyed as part of this war, killing school children. Early reports suggest this was a U.S. missile that missed its target.
Killing schoolboys and schoolgirls is bad in itself. It also can fuel terrorism by radicalizing Iranians against the U.S.
Millions of Iranians are celebrating the Ayatollah’s death, but at least some portion of the population is very angry that the U.S. and Israel killed their leader. That portion happens to be the one most likely to engage in terrorism. That’s why Trump said blowback is likely: When asked if Americans should expect retaliatory terrorist attacks, he answered “I guess. Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”
And the Shia anger has spread outside of Iran’s borders, with riots reported in Bahrain. Our regime change in Iran could, like our regime change in Libya, topple governments we may like.
What regime will arise in Iran to replace the theocracy? We have no idea. Trump had planned a prepackaged switch in Iran, as we apparently pulled off in Venezuela, but that won’t happen. “The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump said. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”
We also don’t know what the client states and groups of Iran will do without Iran’s support. Maybe the terrorist organizations will all shrivel up, and everyone will be safer. Maybe instead they will get desperate, find new patrons, or diffuse into something more chaotic and deadly.
TRUMP SAYS THERE WILL BE NO DEAL WITH IRAN OUTSIDE OF ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’
If this all sounds like guesses, that’s part of the point: We don’t know what bad consequences might flow from this war, and a conservative ought to keep that ignorance at the front of his mind before he enters into a war.
War of choice?
Some argue that Trump doesn’t have a choice, and that this is a defensive war: When the “Death to America” religious nuts get deadly weapons, sooner or later they will attack us with disastrous consequences.
This may be true, but it’s guesswork — just like the guesswork that led us to conclude wrongly that Saddam Hussein was about to launch a nuclear attack.
Even if the war is necessary, though, a conservative ought to acknowledge that war is perilous, and while we can destroy an evil regime, we have no idea what we are creating in its place.
