Human rights activist Amir Basiri sounds a loud neoconservative bell, urging Trump to support political revolution and/or radical political shakeup in Iran. He wants Trump to be “firm” with Iran’s leaders, to stand with the people of Iran against the mullahs.

Should Trump do this? Should the U.S. government support dissent within Iran? Should it foster and aid revolutionary currents and groups inside and outside Iran? Absolutely not. That position interferes with Iran domestically. It attacks the Iranian state and sovereignty. It violates the U.S. commitment to the U.N. charter. It disrespects the Iranian people, insofar as it seeks to undermine their revolution and their form of government. It increases the chances of outright war with Iran. It causes Iran’s leaders to close ranks. It encourages and reinforces their fears of foreign forces attacking against them. It causes them to increase their armaments. It can even cause them to pursue nuclear weapons if they feel that their regime is threatened with destruction.

How would the U.S. like it if foreign nations interfered in American politics and/or fomented insurrection, rebellions, revolts and revolutions? For an answer, look at how the Democrats attempted to make an issue by accusing Russia of interfering in the recent election. How much greater would be the reaction if some other country supported groups within America who decried the tyranny of Washington and called for a color revolution to overturn Washington? How great will be the reaction against George Soros when his hand is found behind street protests against Trump’s election?

The political position that the U.S. should adopt is “Hands Off Iran”. Our government should not stand either with or against the people of Iran. Neither should it stand either with or against the government of Iran, not unless that government does something directly against America. The U.S. position should have been “Hands Off Iraq”, “Hands Off Afghanistan”, “Hands Off Somalia”, “Hands Off Pakistan”, “Hands Off Libya”, “Hands Off Saudi Arabia”, “Hands Off Israel”, and “Hands Off Yemen”. It should be “Hands Off” dozens of other countries.

Why? If revolutions are thought to produce changes for the better, itself a questionable proposition, why shouldn’t the U.S. be in favor of revolutions? Why shouldn’t our government stand up for human rights and support freedom fighters? Why shouldn’t the U.S. take an active “Hands On” position? Why isn’t it a moral duty of the U.S. government to stand with oppressed peoples? Why shouldn’t the U.S. choose the side of “right” in any number of battles and wars and enter those battles and wars on the chosen side? Why isn’t the use of U.S. force in international conflicts the same as having a city policeman step in and stop a robber from robbing an innocent person or a murderer from killing an innocent person? Why shouldn’t the U.S. government use force in the name of doing moral right deeds?

In short, why should the default position of the U.S. government with respect to foreign conflicts, wars, mass deaths, oppressions, and human rights violations be “Hands Off”? Why should the default position not be “Hands On”?

I will no doubt disappoint readers by not presenting the complete case for why “Hands Off” is, in general, the superior option and why “Hands On” should only be undertaken after the most serious consideration that presents unassailable arguments and knowledge in its favor. Certainly the U.S. intervention in World War I proved to be disastrous. The U.S. intervention in Vietnam was tremendously costly to the entire region. The U.S. siding with Israel and its continuous interventions in the Middle East have brought terrorism to our shores. The attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan have borne very bitter fruit. The U.S. has not succeeded in freeing peoples or bringing them free governments. It has chosen sides based on various considerations, including right and moral duty, and it has turned out to make matters worse. At one point, the U.S. sided with a specific government in Iran and overturned its predecessor. That too has yielded eventually to a situation of antagonism that to this day has not been resolved and still is fostering calls for further intervention.

These cases or examples do not make a general argument as to why such interventions fail to achieve the high moral results that they are supposed to achieve. John Stuart Mill once proposed the following general argument:

“When the contest is only with native rulers, and with such native strength as those rulers can enlist in their defence, the answer I should give to the question of the legitimacy of intervention is, as a general rule, No. The reason is, that there can seldom be anything approaching to assurance that intervention, even if successful, would be for the good of the people themselves. The only test possessing any real value, of a people’s having become fit for popular institutions, is that they, or a sufficient portion of them to prevail in the contest, are willing to brave labour and danger for their liberation. I know all that may be said, I know it may be urged that the virtues of freemen cannot be learnt in the school of slavery, and that if a people are not fit for freedom, to have any chance of becoming so they must first be free. And this would be conclusive, if the intervention recommended would really give them freedom. But the evil is, that if they have not sufficient love of liberty to be able to wrest it from merely domestic oppressors, the liberty which is bestowed on them by other hands than their own, will have nothing real, nothing permanent. No people ever was and remained free, but because it was determined to be so; because neither its rulers nor any other party in the nation could compel it to be otherwise.”

I have argued that a society and its government are intimately related or attuned to one another. They are like a clock with mechanisms that work to keep time. The workings are hidden and frequently unknown to crude, ignorant and blundering outsiders like George W. Bush. The government is not an institution, after all, that’s designed to enforce worldwide morality or to act as worldwide policeman. It’s rather easy for a blundering executive to choose force and intervention, or to interfere in other equally blundering ways using foreign aid, or political recognition, or sanctions. I say it’s rather easy to gum up the clock’s workings or become heavily involved in trying to replace the mechanism with something that’s supposed to work better but usually doesn’t because there is such a flawed understanding of what makes that society and government tick.

Then there is the fact that interference in foreign countries arises not only from the moral impulses of human rights activists or those who say that there is a responsibility to protect peoples being oppressed or killed. They arise also from motives of greed, revenge, imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, rape, conquest, domination, acquisition of resources, and so on. “Hands On” is highly likely to play into the hands of immoralists.

As for the moralists who wish to remake the world, what is their image? How do we know that their desired political structures are good? How can we justify bloodletting, which is a common result of “Hands On”? Do we obtain moral ends by using immoral means? What if there are no ends, but only means? What if the ends are to be found in the means?

Why do we not consider that if moralists wish to contend with foreign governments like Iran’s and foster revolutions in those countries that they do it themselves? Why don’t they take the risks themselves and organize the people themselves? Why do they try to get someone else to do their work for them? Why does Mr. Basiri want Trump and the U.S. government to do what he won’t or can’t do himself? If he is not willing to make that sacrifice for freedom, why should we be forced to by our government?

The world at present has many peoples. They identify themselves as such and they feel that identity. It persists. Being a people arises from a variety of sources that are apparently strong. A Frenchman does not so easily give up being French to become European. An Iranian is not an American. The members of a people tend to unite and close ranks when outsiders make it their business to interfere or influence what that people is about or appear to threaten its ways or even its existence. A people’s politics arise in complex ways that outside interference threatens. The resisting powers of a people, or even smaller groups identified ethically or tribally, are very strong, surprisingly strong and long-lived. We see this in America in native American tribes who maintain certain elements of their culture and resist incursions from outside. As in America, so in Afghanistan. (Identity politics divides a given people further. It is “a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.”)

Any new or renewed American attempts to stir up revolutions or interfere in foreign elections in Iran or Russia or anywhere else are very likely to provoke the reaction of solidarity and unity, if not outright armed resistance, from the affected countries because the U.S. is really attempting to alter a people when it alters its government.

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