When possible, we should always try to be the “good guys” and not step on peoples’ toes. That is a good moral principle, and also a smart policy.

Why make enemies when you don’t have to?

Critics of the US, including here at home, often point to historical facts as excuses for why some of our adversaries hate and strike out at us, and every once in a while they have a point. US interventions in Latin America have not always been made because of pure motives, for instance, although in most cases even questionable past acts are not truly a barrier to good relations because good relations with the US are generally a good thing to have, and it’s not like any group or country has always had pure motives either.

Academics and opinion writers have the luxury of contemplating the rights and wrongs of history, but people who are concerned with a stable international order and as much peace as possible reigning in the world have no such luxury. The simple fact is that our enemies hate us, and it doesn’t really matter why.

More often than not, history is an excuse for that hatred and not a justification or reason for it. The United States bombed Japan with nukes and leveled its cities with firebombing, and Germany got nearly the same treatment. We are great friends with both of them now. Germany and Israel have pretty good relations now, and Germans tried to exterminate Jews. History is history. Now and the future are what really matters.

As a matter of simple fact, countries such as Iran, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba hate us because there are just plain bad people in charge. The US had great relations with Iran until Carter abandoned the Shah, and if you attack the Shah’s human rights record and justify Iran’s hatred of us based on our support for him, take note of how much worse the theocrats are. We were right to back the Shah.

Many Muslims still harken back to the Crusades as an excuse for hating the West, which is absurd both because Muslims had been aggressors against Christians at times, and because it is ancient history.

I had read about Westerners defending Stalin's purges and collectivization campaigns and thought, well, their ideological fervor was probably just amplified by the difficulty of getting good information out of the USSR.

But now I see that's not it.

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 12, 2023

And, if Soviet history is any guide, the only thing that made these can't-make-an-omelet folks reconsider whether that was really true—or if the end was worth it if these were the means—was finding themselves in an NKVD cell and thinking, "There's been a terrible mistake."

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 12, 2023

Our adversaries hate us. It really doesn’t matter why. It is the job of our leaders to defend America and the West, to the extent that the interests of America align with other Western countries, and not to court the favor of people who want to see us destroyed.

Appeasement is the sort of policy that can work with countries that are simply jockeying for position on the world stage; despite its bad reputation post-Chamberlain, it actually is a legitimate strategy to use when a simple deal could align everybody’s interests more closely. You appease your allies and often neutral countries; you should never ever appease your enemies because your interests will never align.

There are reconcilable differences and irreconcilable differences. People who hate us will never reconcile with us, and we shouldn’t try.

The Obama and then Biden policies have been to sweet talk and bribe our enemies into friendship or neutrality. That is profoundly stupid because it will never, ever work. While it is true that open hostilities are rarely the best choice, conflicts short of war with enemies are the best achievable outcome.

Joe Biden has sleepwalked the US into yet another proxy war, and possibly a hot war. I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that, but Biden’s appeasement of Iran has made it more likely.

Sometimes you just have to pick a side and ignore the excuses. Hitler pointed to the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles as a justification for building up the Nazi state, and indeed the Treaty of Versailles was very stupid and arguably unjust. But so what? The millions upon millions of murders that followed the rise of Hitler could not possibly be justified by any treaty’s terms.

Hamas sympathizers are now trying to justify their barbaric acts because of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Historically speaking their account of the injustices are generally inaccurate, but even if they weren’t nothing can justify indiscriminate rape and murder. The territories aren’t a full-blown Palestinian state because the Palestinians refused to make peace, and Gaza is almost a prison because the leadership and Hamas terrorists are criminal barbarians, not the other way around.

Whatever the reason, they hate Israel. There will be no peace with Hamas or any group that wants a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” That is a call for genocide, and there is only one way to deal with genocidal maniacs.