Scribblings

On Political Doubt and Uncertainty

I often wish I could write with the moral certainty of many who post articles here on Substack or in newspapers, magazines, and elsewhere on the internet. They know what is right and what is wrong. They appear to harbour no doubts. They pick sides and stick with their side, no matter what.

As an example, take the current Israeli/US attacks on Iran, a war between the two sides, with others drawn in. When I turn on my computer, my screen is full of denunciations of what is happening as an “illegal war”, waged by a “deranged” madman in the White House and an Israeli prime minister trying to keep himself out of jail for corruption.

All of this may well be true. But is there any such thing as a “legal war”? Aren’t all wars “illegal” in one way or another? Certainly, Ukraine is more than entitled to defend against Russia’s brutal invasion of its territory and its stated intention to grab a chunk of Ukraine for itself. But is not what Russia has been attempting to do to Ukraine, going back to its annexation of Crimea in 2014, “illegal”?

The question is this. When it comes to what happens between countries, who gets to decide what is legal and what is not? The immediate answer to this question is usually “The United Nations”, but, to be completely honest, the United Nations is largely a failed institution and one of dubious moral value. Russia and China, hardly shining examples of liberal virtue and democratic practices, sit permanently on the Security Council. Are they to have a say in declaring a war legal or illegal? Of the 193 members of the UN, how many are autocracies or dictatorships? Is there a democracy anywhere in the Arab world? How many member countries of the United Nations are renowned for their lack of respect for human rights? Is ICE in the US well-regarded for its adherence to the rule of law?

The world is not morally black and while. It is shot through with deep shades of grey, if indeed there are any shades at all. Sometimes there are just moral black holes.

So, who gets to decide if the US/Israeli attack on Iran is legal or illegal? To further complicate the answer to this question is the fact that Iran is not exactly a model of good governance, dedicated to the welfare of its people. It is a brutal theocracy, run by a bunch of people, the mullahs, who believe that God is directing their actions and they alone know God’s intentions. Now, leave aside the question as to whether or not there is a God; I generally distrust people who believe they hear the voice of God in their heads and are filled with righteousness because of this. How many thousands of its own people did the Iranian regime slaughter earlier this year when they took to the streets to protest? Some put the number at around 30,000. Is it illegal to attack such a regime, especially when that regime is attacking neighbours through a bunch of proxies, such as Hezbollah?

It is worth making the point that there are people in the MAGA movement in the US who would like to turn the country into a Christian theocracy. Read the works of Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen, or Stephen Wolf, if you doubt what I say. A recent book from Woolfe is called The Case for Christian Nationalism. I suspect that many in the MAGA movement have a sly regard for Iranian theocracy. It is just the wrong sort of theocracy, Muslim instead of Christian. There are some in the UK, in Farage’s Reform Party, who would like to work to a Christian nationalist agenda also.

Irish people of a certain, older age, who lived through the 50s and 60s, will know what it was like to live in a quasi-Catholic theocracy, which is what Ireland was in those years. The same is true of clerical fascism in Spain in the Franco era. Most of us do not want to see a return of those days. But there are some who do, such as Vox in Spain. There are those out there who want to reunite church and state, as was the case before the European Enlightenment. Liberal pluralism needs constant defending.

In 1648, after the Thirty Years’ War (1618 – 1648), the rulers of European countries, kings and emperors for the most part, signed the Treaty of Westphalia. It laid down the principle of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Countries were to respect one another, not invade one another, and not interfere in one another’s internal affairs. It was more honoured in principle than in practice. How many European wars have there been since 1648, with one country attacking another?

A major driving force in the establishment of the European Union in the 1950s was to end the fetishisation of “national sovereignty” through the pooling of elements of that sovereignty in the name of the common European good. It has worked to considerable effect, and we Europeans are the better for it. Of course, the limited surrender of sovereignty was too much for many in the UK, and the recovery of sovereignty was a part of the rationale for Brexit, a desire to “take back control”. For many of the Brexiters, “taking back control” seems to mean following blindly where the US goes. Take back control from Brussels just to give it to Washington.

The European Union is a very imperfect institution, often very slow-moving in coming to decisions. But it is the only institution in the world where a group of countries have agreed to work together through genuine, common decision-making with a significant degree of democratic participation through national governments and the European Parliament.

But even the European Union takes morally dubious decisions, such as the way it behaves at times over migrant flows. But even in such situations, who decides what is the right thing to do? Before anyone points me in the direction of international courts, such as the ECHR and the ICC, let me say that I am not persuaded that such courts are capable of making what are complex moral and political decisions. Would you regard the current US Supreme Court as morally impeccable, and it is probably the most powerful court in the world?

My point is this. It is not always easy to know what is the right thing to do. Other than the mundane, all major political decisions involve a degree of moral judgement. Unless you have a black and white moral code, then doubt and uncertainty will always come into play. We grope in the dark to find the light. It will always be that way. The world is a deeply imperfect place. It will never be any other way.