>> Dabashi may indeed be engaging in some
>> liberal conceit, but I don't understand
>> why the situation has to be reduced to
>> the binary of a Prisoner's Dilemma?
>
> Because some people are imprisoned by
> imperial thinking, even if they believe
> otherwise?
Marv wrote:
> I think you (Julio) may be exaggerating
> the extent to which the US would utilize
> the "oppression of women" and others to
> "rationalize the aggression".
In a similar vein, others argue that Bush doesn't give a shit about gays and women in Iran. So the criticism of the Western left of Ahmedinajad's government's treatment of gays and women in Iran can have no consequence. It cannot strengthen imperialism or weaken Iran.
Suggesting otherwise is calumnious.
Taken as a whole, the arguments (implicit or explicit) in the formulations above encapsulate the precise way in which the U.S. left (or, more generally, the Western left) can ensure continuous strategic irrelevance and its remaining a marginal yet effective tool in the hands of the most reactionary and dangerous forces of our time.
It's the sum of two wrongheaded beliefs: (1) we (the Western left) can alter the *terms* of the conflict facing the Iranians by merely reframing the discourse, by boldly escaping an artificially imposed discursive dichotomy, and (2) our actions have no influence on the *outcome* of the conflict. Strategic voluntarism paired with tactical fatalism.
Well... it's exactly the opposite!
We won't make any significant advance until we realize that the broader social, political forces in motion in our time, their fundamental interests, the clashes between them (which bring about the largest human consequences) cannot be altered directly, immediately by the sheer application of our political will (let alone by merely declaring our wishes).
We need to take action upon accepting that the motion of these social forces, the main terrains on which these forces clash -- i.e. the *terms* of their conflict -- are determined by social conditions that -- historically speaking -- take a geological time to shift, acquire political articulation, etc. For all the immediate practical purposes relevant to the Western left, these forces are large gravitational attractors that warp the political space-time continuum in which we operate.
That's why, regardless of our desires, we don't really have a large number of nuanced options from which to choose. In effect, the hardened realities of the conflict funnel our options, force them into a binary choice. We can make the choice with less or more awareness of the consequences, or by default. It's still a binary choice. In the abstract, there may be a sharp difference between "legitimate" criticisms of Iranian policies and pro-imperialist manifestos. Yet, in real life terms, intentions don't have to be matched by consequences.
So, I am not impressed by Prof. Dabashi's piece. A roughly equal number of blows delivered to Bollinger and Ahmadinejad won't cut it for me. It's brave in that it risks his job by criticizing his boss. It's coward in that he attacks Ahmedinajad at a time when the country that man leads is being threatened by the biggest economic and military power in human history.
Even if Dabashi doesn't intend it, his perorations against Ahmadinajad translate into moral grandstanding from the academic Mount Olympus of a prominent U.S. university. As influential as a Columbia professor may be (or may believe he is), the broader terms of the conflict won't bend. I mean, the terms of the conflict between Iran and U.S. imperialism -- because the terms of the conflict over the allocation of resources at Columbia University may end up affected.
The sooner we understand that the terms of the larger conflicts are a given, the faster we will be in a position to make them truly pliable to our political efforts. The sooner we understand this, the sooner we'll be making a difference at this level. A difference we can make, because we (the Western left) -- as much as we cannot directly change hardened social conditions -- are not in a terrible position to influence the *outcome* of these larger conflicts. We are strategically weak, but we are not tactical nothings. That's because the specific outcomes of these conflicts are determined at the margin, where small, incremental influences can have decisive, disproportionate effects.
Even if unable to change the terms of the conflict, our views and actions are consequential. With time, we can build up on that marginal power. But that requires our actions to be sustained, to adjust so that they best "win friends and influence people," to be consistent with the way in (and pace at) which society (ourselves included) evolves, etc. Then we will be in a position to change the terms of our relations with other nations.
Just because the Bushies don't give a shit about gays and women in Iran or anywhere else doesn't mean that they cannot boomerang gays and women issues against the Iranians.
These arguments remind me of the rationale used to justify the candidacy of Ralph Nader in 2000. Nader's campaign was supposed to help break the stronghold of the two-party system in U.S. politics. A grand (and certainly desirable) strategic goal. But then they argued that Nader couldn't hurt Gore, that only Gore could hurt himself. In other words, Nader was thought to be tactically ineffectual. Well, Nader's campaign was the exact opposite: a strategic zero and a tactical coup (in favor of Bush!).
Of course the Republicans didn't give a shit about Nader's agenda in 2000. Yet that didn't stop Erik Prince (Amway's major stockholder, Blackwater USA's CEO, and top Republican funder) and other Republicans with a bit of strategic common sense from giving cash to Nader's campaign to weaken Gore just a little here and a little there.
How much of a difference did Nader make in Florida? Maybe Greg Palast can tell. There was some Nader-Gore vote pairing, but perhaps not enough. Gore had to spend resources facing Nader's needling on the left flank, resources that could have been used differently. Etc. What's undeniable is that in highly contested conflicts, weakening one side at the margin, just nibbling a bit one of its flanks can make all the difference in tilting the outcome. (Ex ante, a rv can have n possible outcomes. Ex post, only one is realized and observed.)