Ritter blames Iran for 'waving a red flag to the israeli bull'
Posted by Ian M on June 16, 2025, 11:13 pm
Hmmm, doesn't sit right. Mate gets him to agree that it was a pretext for the strike, not a legitimate justification, but the way he's talking is way too sympathetic to the US/israeli perspective and gives too much credence to negotiations (which the US has used to string them along) and ignores the very good reason why Iran might be pushing for a nuclear weapon at this point, namely as a deterrent to a US/israel attack. I think I'm going to have to side with Zei Squirrel and others on this (thread below: https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1750033648.html ) - as with North Korea, the only way Iran is going to get US/israel to back off is to develop a credible nuclear threat. Unless they feel they can hold a sword over israel just with the ballistics & drones. I don't agree with Ritter's assertion about it being a 'red line' for the US which would result in a nuclear strike on Iran. Why didn't that happen in NK? Because they were scared of the potential consequences and they believed the NK govt's threats were credible.
Wish it weren't so, and I hate adopting this way of thinking, but I don't see another way out of it for Iran. Tell me why I'm wrong.
Ritter has had this argument with Marandi for a spell. Intellectually I am sympathetic to SR's views, on international nuclear proliferation in general, except for the fact that western golden billion elite is using this view to completely cancel Iran's aspirations i.e. civil nuclear program, up to 3.6% etc. Russia has offered a way out ..
In the offices we all hear and repeat it: "We must not provoke them!"
To paraphrase Churchill, if you choose Shame instead of War, you get War anyway - on worse terms.
Sadly, for all the peace sign tattoos, and the rainbow slogans, what we see now is that "Might is right" has triumphed.
*****
All this state/country perspective is unhealthy and toxic from an anarchist perspective. War is a gift to the state when everybody starts using the 'we' as Simonyan does above and invests their identities in the national entity. The bind comes when only these national entities are able to employ the force required to end atrocities committed by another. Really, conflicts should all be on an immediate peer-to-peer level and resolved in the same arena, between people or small groups who have to find ways of living together, or, failing that, to limit or ritualise conflict so that it doesn't get out of control. But it's all well and good saying that, while in the present moment thousands of Palestinians are being murdered by the state of israel. Groovy anarcho-primitivist stances aren't much help to them, are they?
I have more sympathy for David Graeber wishing for US bombs to fall on those persecuting his beloved Kurdish anarchist social movement - https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/archive/1567854610.html - though I still think that was wrong. I suppose there's a difference, too, between wishing for the bombs of the hegemon, with all the strings that come attached with those, and wishing for missiles from Iran, which stands in opposition to the Empire. The more you can play them off against one another, the less energy they have to f* us all over.
Maybe. Thoughts not finalised on this, in case you can't tell!
All this state/country perspective is unhealthy and toxic from an anarchist perspective. War is a gift to the state when everybody starts using the 'we' as Simonyan does above and invests their identities in the national entity.
I think you are overstating it .. regarding her words. She was conflating the propaganda narrative and military perspective imo. Her view is not worth the bother to analyse it. She is simply wrong and shallow.
As far as anarchist system protecting large populace, do give me an example of where this has worked. Consider Russia? Or Iran?
Re: Ritter blames Iran for 'waving a red flag to the israeli bull'
You need to abolish the boss class, which isn't that difficult. Think of England in 1970, free of the parasitism of the class nexus built on top of a fairly social democratic state. Think of what the state did afterwards, go into reverse and don't stop. The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
T said: 'I think you are overstating it .. regarding her words. She was conflating the propaganda narrative and military perspective imo. Her view is not worth the bother to analyse it. She is simply wrong and shallow.' - actually I think she's basically right, if you watch the whole clip (the tweet only covers a small part), especially about the ineffectiveness of international law and in rejecting the statement that 'power is truth':
'Strength lies in the quantity and quality of missiles, strength lies in the quantity and quality of drones, strength lies in the quantity and quality of reconnaissance, and whether you are right or wrong in this case, absolutely no one cares, and this is very sad. We have to draw sad conclusions from this. Sad, but necessary.'
(Reminiscent of the old french saying that 'God is usually for the big squadrons against the small ones'.) Of course there are other kinds of strength, and moral force is not without its own power, but when it comes to geopolitics that stuff is basically meaningless. The likes of Ritter and even Finkelstein put their faith in the law, but anyone can see, especially now, that it's not consistently applied, and in fact used as a tool to further the aims of the powerful ("You guys play by the rules; we'll do as we please.") The issue I have is that just because this sociopathic logic applies on the level of the nation state, does that mean we have to accept it as a general principle? Or if we refuse to identify with king & country does that allow us to still resolve our differences as human beings?
'As far as anarchist system protecting large populace, do give me an example of where this has worked. Consider Russia? Or Iran?' - well, that's rather the point I was making: threats to your life made using state-level military force basically ensure that the only means of survival are either capitulation, running away or responding with your own (or somebody else's) state-level military force. It goes back to Schmookler's 'Parable of the Tribes'*, and you can see it happening in those who are urging Iran to double down on its aggression and begin to act similarly to the way that israel has been acting. Me saying that it makes sense for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons is part of the same logic: even if motivated by a desire to avert the suffering of ordinary people living in Iran, the effect is an increase in extreme state-level militarism, which is never going to end well.
The Selection for Power: The Parable of the Tribes
The new human freedom made striving for expansion and power possible. Such freedom, when multiplied, creates anarchy. The anarchy among civilized societies meant that the play of power in the system was uncontrollable. In an anarchic situation like that, no one can choose that the struggle for power shall cease. But there is one more element in the picture: no one is free to choose peace, but anyone can impose upon all the necessity for power. This is the lesson of the parable of the tribes.
Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one choose peace, and that one is ambitious for expansion and conquest? What can happen to the others when confronted by an ambitious and potent neighbor? Perhaps one tribe is attacked and defeated, its people destroyed and its lands seized for the use of the victors. Another is defeated, but this one is not exterminated; rather, it is subjugated and transformed to serve the conqueror. A third seeking to avoid such disaster flees from the area into some inaccessible (and undesirable) place, and its former homeland becomes part of the growing empire of the power-seeking tribe. Let us suppose that others observing these developments decide to defend themselves in order to preserve themselves and their autonomy. But the irony is that successful defense against a power-maximizing aggressor requires a society to become more like the society that threatens it. Power can be stopped only by power, and if the threatening society has discovered ways to magnify its power through innovations in organization or technology (or whatever), the defensive society will have to transform itself into something more like its foe in order to resist the external force.
I have just outlined four possible outcomes for the threatened tribes: destruction, absorption and transformation, withdrawal, and imitation. In every one of these outcomes the ways of power are spread throughout the system. This is the parable of the tribes.[5]
The parable of the tribes is a theory of social evolution which shows that power is like a contaminant, a disease, which once introduced will gradually yet inexorably become universal in the system of competing societies. More important than the inevitability of the struggle for power is the profound social evolutionary consequence of that struggle once it begins. A selection for power among civilized societies is inevitable. If anarchy assured that power among civilized societies could not be governed, the selection for power signified that increasingly the ways of power would govern the destiny of mankind. This is the new evolutionary principle that came into the world with civilization. Here is the social evolutionary black hole that we have sought as an explanation of the harmful warp in the course of civilization’s development.Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
Thanks for responding and giving an honest assessment. I can't do it justice since my enemy is time. Hence I'll have to surf in accordance with my priorities and try to be succinct (also time related).
I suppose a tribe can relate to a state : ). My first consideration is what can the tribe/state do for me, and second would be what can I do for the tribe/state. The order is determined by my suspicious nature and secondly to do with my abilities. Ownership by my tribe/state of infrastructure including healthcare, means of communication and political decisions is probably the tip of the iceberg as far as the consideration of desirable attributes. Unfortunately we are nowhere near to that ideal scenario imo. Anarchism to my mind is probably the ideal system one could aspire to .. as I try to parse through all different tries (the early primitive ones win hands down). Socialism .. erm .. disappearing beyond horizon as we speak. Unfortunately at the present moment neither are gonna happen. I don't have a straightforward answer. Cheers ...
No worries, needed to clarify it for myself anyway ;) Nothing to add for now, cheers, I (nm)
The way to deal with being treated unfairly by the US, if you can’t win ultimately, is not to act as an equal, but instead to make the US expend a substantial amount of energy keeping you down - BUT just a little bit less energy than would be required to take you out.
Now, maybe Iran has calculated they can win ultimately. We shall see, I guess.
Russia made the calculation that they can win, and they were correct. However, Iran is not Russia.
on June 16, 2025, 11:13 pm