Even if, like me, you’re against a military confrontation with Iran, it’s still good to be reminded of the brutality of the regime. To wit. (via Tapped).

I think it’s important for people who favor a more restrained military policy to think about alternative ways of engaging with human rights abuses. For instance, I remember for several years in the late 90s getting e-mail petitions forwarded to me by lefty friends about the horrors of women’s lives under the Taliban. But come late 2001 and these very same people were in opposition to the war to oust the Taliban (which, in my opinion, was justifiable on other grounds), thus opening themselves to the charge that they were opposed to the only possible way of liberating those women from oppression. The same argument gets made against people who, out of prudence or for other reasons, don’t want to see a US intervention in Sudan.

Now, one thing the non-interventionist can say is that nine times out of ten, military intervention is only going to make things worse, not least because it rarely addresses the underlying causes of the conflict. And if the chances of improving the situation are slim, the least you can do is not add to the carnage. In other words, “first, do no harm.”

But, for better or worse, I’m not sure it’s an option to simply say that human rights abuses elsewhere in the world are none of our business. And if we oppose military action except as a last resort, are the other approaches that hold promise?