If History Excuses Everything, It Justifies Nothing

Why tracing the roots of conflict does not determine the moral legitimacy of responding to it

Woodrow Wilson at Versailles - a treaty that, it has been argued, ended WWI and initiated WWII

Several people have recently attempted to persuade me that military action against the Islamic Regime in Iran is unjustifiable, chiefly on historical grounds. They contend that British Secret Service and CIA involvement in the 1953 removal of the Iranian president fostered anti-Western sentiment, which, in their view, set the stage for the 1979 revolution and the emergence of the current regime.

However, in evaluating the legitimacy of potential military action, can historical grievances alone serve as sufficient grounds for ruling out present-day justification?

Certainly, British and American involvement in the coup, officially admitted to in 2013, is an unsavoury episode in these countries’ foreign policy.

It could be convincingly argued that Western interference in 1953 was a significant contributing factor in fostering the conditions that enabled the revolution to succeed a quarter of a century later. However, does this provide a basis for a moral argument on whether the USA (or Britain) should face up to Iran militarily today?

Surely, whilst historical foreign intervention did shape Iran’s political landscape, it does not preclude the possibility of a legitimate justification for military action in the present, which should be determined by current circumstances rather than solely by historical grievances.

Many historians have argued that the terms of Germany’s defeat in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 were overly harsh and deeply humiliating. Whilst the degree to which the terms were overly harsh is not a matter of consensus, the psychological impact of Versailles contributed to a sense of aggrievement and resentment that provided fertile ground for a descent into the militant fascism and aggressive expansionism of the Nazis.

To read the rest of the article, visit Simply Complicated on Substack by clicking here