I have often wondered why people mistake "understanding" and "excusing".

For example, whenever we hear about a criminal on the news, some friend or family member will tell us how hard a childhood he had, what horrible abuse he suffered and so on, with the implication being that we should not punish him as harshly because of this. But why? Is it better to be murdered by someone who was abused as a child than by a coldblooded killer for hire? Are you any less dead if you killer had a troubled childhood? The truth is, everyone who does something wrong has a reason for it, many of them reasons which would elicit sympathy from someone, but it doesn't make their acts any less harmful to the victims. Whether you acted from simple greed, or uncontrollable rage, or from a bad childhood or a rotten marriage, you still did wrong, you are still the same threat regardless of motive, and I can't imagine why your reasons would change how you should be treated¹.

Recently I have seen an even more bizarre version of this error, arguing for special treatment of nations provided their motives are "understandable". Not that this is entirely unprecedented. How many countless students have learned that Germans was somehow "pushed" into World War II by the reparations of Versaiiles²? Even if this were true, does it make the subsequent war any different? Should Poland have failed to defend herself, or Britain withdrawn the AEF because Germany had understandable motives? Should we have refused to fight because reparations pushed Germany into war³?

Today, this argument takes the form of justifications of Iranian nuclear ambitions, Iranian support of terrorism and other Iranian efforts to either achieve regional dominance or threaten other nation states. The argument takes many forms, from arguing that Iran still feels threatened because of US meddling during the 1950's, to arguments that Iran is threatened by Israel, to arguments that our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq has driven them to extremes.

Whether any of these are valid or not, and some are rather suspect to say the least⁴,  my response is still "so what?" Whether Iran supports terrorism out of fears of US overthrow of her government, worries over Israeli power, a feeling of inferiority to Iraq or a desire to rule all her neighbors, does it matter? Should we respond differently to terrorism?

Let me return to World War II. When the Germans entered Poland, what should Poland have done? Does it matter if the war started because of reparations, nationalism, trade restrictions or economic collapse? Poland had one, and only one, response, to mobilize troops and drive the Germans out. The motives were irrelevant, actions were all that mattered.

And that is the case with Iran. We cannot care about motives. First, because we can never know motives with anything approaching certainty, only actions. Second, because by considering motives we give nations the incentive to obfuscate, to lie about their motives, in order to be able to act with impunity through sympathy. Just as our racial preference and pro-disability laws have created a victim-driven social order in some respects, a worry about international motives would create a victim-state system, whereby states which could claim to have been on the receiving end of past injustices would be able to carry out any acts they wanted, while those who did wrong, even centuries before, would be forced to pay in perpetuity⁵.

No, we cannot consider motive. It is irrelevant. What matters is deeds. Nations which behave, which respect their neighbors, engage in no hostilities and otherwise are good citizens will be safe. And those who do not, regardless of why, will need to be handled in the same way, no matter why they acted.
 
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1. For the same reason I oppose hate crime laws. If sympathy does not make an argument for less punishment, then having more repulsive motives also does not make for greater punishment. If I am consistent, and argue motives are irrelevant, it is the deed which counts, then I have to be so in both directions. And, from the point of view of society, I can't see arguing any differently. We want to keep the peace, and protect rights, regardless of why people violate those rights. So hate crimes, crimes of passion, premeditated and spur of the moment should all count the same. Then again, I have argued before that I never understood why killing out of rage is legally "better" than premeditated murder. (See "Compassionate Execution")

2. I haven't the space to argue this here, but this is a total lie. Without the expansive social programs and covert rearmament the government carried out throughout the 20's and 30's, as well as the irresponsible monetary policy that led tot he hyperinflation of the early 20's, reparations would have been burdensome but not crushing. In any case, the fact remains that a war initiated by Germany and Austria-Hungary destroyed much of France's industrial infrastructure. Someone was going to have to rebuild that. If there were no reparations, then it would fall to France to pay to rebuild what Germany destroyed. That hardly seems fair. To exonerate Germany on these grounds is like saying a man fined for shoplifting was thereby forced into more shoplifting. There were alternatives other than war, Germany simply chose to ignore them.

3. A similar myth exists about France's expansionist policies, especially under the Bourbon monarchs. The argument is apparently that, finding themselves surrounded by hostile alliances, France had no choice but establish her own web of alliances and start wars in self-defense. It not only is irrelevant to how the other nations should respond to those wars, but also ignores the fact that many of those "hostile alliances" arose precisely because of earlier French expansionist plans.

4. Much of Iran's activity predates 9/11 and our responses, making those unlikely causes. And as I argued in "Correlation vs. Causation", Israel may make a convenient scapegoat, but that is all. Actually, as the Shia-Sunni struggle dates back to the 8th century, while   Persian-Arab aggression dates back AT LEAST to the Ottoman Empire, and in many respects back to classical times, seeing the Iranian struggle with her neighbors in terms of the US and Israel is to be quite blind to history. Obviously Israel and the US may influence the foreign policy of Iran, but to blame all aggression on the US or Israel is absurd.

5. In some respects this did happen in Kossovo. Because of past Serb misdeeds, we were more inclined to believe the worst  and ignore problems with the KLA, including ties to organized crime, to Islamic militants, and worries about their own ethnic cleansing of groups such as the Roma, which did come to pass. (A similar problem occurred in many Balkan conflicts. In many cases, both sides were equally guilty of ethnic bigotry and persecution, but we chose sides based on preconceptions of the "right" side. -- Do not confuse this with other conflicts in which we knowingly chose bad guys for strategic reasons, such as our back and forth between Iran and Iraq in the 80's, where our main interest was keeping the Soviets out of the Persian Gulf. In these cases Clinton was arguing we were doing the "moral" thing.)

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POSTSCRIPT

Some will challenge my assertion about motives by pointing to my support of preemptive war, or my opposition to Iranian nuclear plans, arguing that I am making assumptions about motive there. But that misses my point. In planning and intelligence we are free to guess as to motive, to fail to do so would be suicidal. My point is only that motive cannot be used as an excuse, not that we can never consider motive when deciding if actions are a threat to us. Just as an individual is not bound to respect "innocent until proven guilty", only the courts are so obligated, motive is only irrelevant in giving nations excuses, it can be considered in any other context, especially when it provides useful warning.

POSTSCRIPT II

I made the first part of this argument, concerning the criminal justice system, several months ago in "Motives Unimportant".